


Waste of Breath

by BryroseA



Series: Done by Only Me [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon, F/M, Missing Scene, Navy, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1834330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryroseA/pseuds/BryroseA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan Echolls, the nine years, and the Navy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waste of Breath

I know that I shall meet my fate   
Somewhere among the clouds above;    
Those that I fight I do not hate    
Those that I guard I do not love;    
[…]  
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,    
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,  
A lonely impulse of delight    
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;    
I balanced all, brought all to mind,    
The years to come seemed waste of breath,    
A waste of breath the years behind  
In balance with this life, this death.

— “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” W. B. Yeats

_______

 

Logan rolls over and looks at his alarm clock. 1:15pm, January 30th, 2008. He stares at the blinking date for a second before rolling back over and pressing his face into the pillow. _One year._ It has been one year since the last time he had sex with Veronica Mars. _Happy you’re-a-sad-fuck-iversary. Seriously, who the fuck remembers this shit? Not just the day you started dating. Not just the day you broke up, but the last time you made lov—had sex._ He lets it play through his mind; allowing—no, actually inviting—himself to wallow in the pleasure-pain.

It was the morning after their hooker conversation; the morning after Veronica came the closest she’s ever come to saying she loved him. Filled with hope and horny as hell, he’d woken up to her on top of him. Morning sex—it’s secretly Logan’s favorite kind of sex—all warm bodies and soft breaths, tender and tousled, smelling like each other and unselfconscious in the early morning light. It doesn’t escape Logan’s notice that Veronica is pretty much the only one he’s ever had it with. Even with the permissive rich parents of Neptune, sleepovers hadn’t exactly been _de rigueur_ in high school and he’d never encouraged Parker to stay the night, much less any of the nameless string of bimbos.

He lets his mind float back a year—hand drifting under the covers—to Veronica as she looked that morning. Initiating; looking at him lovingly—such a rarity and so treasured, those memories. The skin of her hips under his hands. Her nipples brushing his chest. Mouthing at her neck; licking the taste of sweat and sex and Veronica from her clavicle. Watching her, intent above him, eyes half closed; so beautiful, so goddamn beautiful.

He comes in an embarrassingly short amount of time, heart rate slowing as bitterness floods back into him. He is so fucking _tired_ of orbiting around Veronica’s absence like a sliver of soap circling the drain.

He’s dealt with their break ups in various (fucked up) ways before; always extremes—flaming anger and bitterness or intense, almost scary, depression—but this… This situation isn’t really a break up; it’s more of a severing.

It has left him in a kind of numb limbo. There was no big dramatic fight to play over and over in his mind, to analyze, to wrap himself in. The last time he saw her—in the Hearst Cafeteria after the Sorokin beat-down—she wasn’t angry with him, exactly, he doesn’t think. She was…well, whatever she was it didn’t change anything so it doesn’t really matter, now does it?

Her late-summer email was short and to the point. Their follow up phone conversation was even shorter and more to the point. She’d hit on one of the few things that would get through to him _(“Logan, please. I need this.”)_ The “please” was one blow. The happy sounds of the Stanford dorms in the background _(“Come on Veronica! The film festival is already starting!”)_ was probably worse.

Now he’s stuck between wanting her and wanting what’s best for her. Sometimes it feels noble and self-sacrificing. Mostly it feels like shit.

_She’s gone. She’s out and she’s past me. I should never have believed she was mine to hold on to in the first place._

He’s dated. And dated and dated. After Parker there was Emily and Minh and then a big blur of Kelli-Selma-Audrey-Aubrey-Lisa-Blonde-Brunette-Whothefuckcaresanymore. Nothing erases the taste of Veronica from his tongue or the stamp of her from his mind. It’s like Veronica is some kind of missing limb, cut away and leaving him with phantom pain where there should be nothing.

Why would she come back to him? He's a waste of space. A hollow shell only filled by her presence. There is nothing in him to give that she would want—that anyone would want. He has no ambition other than to be with her. How the fuck could that possibly be enough for anyone, let alone Veronica? 

_One year._

That night, he buys a hooker for the first time, only to send the girl away as soon as she arrives at the suite. The second the door closes behind her, he smashes everything in sight. 

 

_______

 

The beginning of a new semester means the inevitable activities fair. Logan wanders through the row of booths, cup of coffee in hand. _What the hell? Better than going to class, right?_

The Pi Sig booth is spilling over with obnoxious frat dudes. Logan spots Dick among them and meanders over. After the incident with the hooker a few nights ago, he’s been feeling mean and looking to poke at someone. _Dick is always good for a meaningless fight to let off steam._

Dick has his arm around the new frat president—Hunter, Logan thinks—and is holding forth at some freshmen about the wonders of Pi Sig and all of the “hot ass” they tap. Clearly, Dick has already had his morning drink or three. His eyes have a glazed look to them and the scent of Cuervo hovers in the air.

Logan leans in to him a little and sniffs ostentatiously. “Hmm…new cologne?”

Dick blinks and pulls his arm away from Hunter, turning to face Logan fully. “Man, you have been such a _dick_ the last few days.”

Logan cocks his head and shoots back, “Pot, meet kettle.”

Dick, however, is clearly past the drunk sweet spot and he lashes out, going right for Logan’s tender underbelly. “Fuck, dude what the hell is with you recently? I never thought I’d miss Ronnie, but at least when she had your balls in a vice you weren’t quite so fucking assholish.”

Logan is immediately on the defensive, his tone dropping into dead seriousness, “Look, man, don’t drag Veronica into—“

Hunter, who has been standing nearby watching the spat with interest, cuts into the conversation with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Oh that’s _you_. The one whose girlfriend…” He waggles his eyebrows and gives a suggestive leer.

Dick, loyal even when pissed, quickly turns on Hunter and shoves him a little “Shut up, man.” He glances nervously at Logan, who is now standing stock still with what anyone from high school would recognize as a dangerous look on his face. “Plus, Ronnie’s not his girlfriend.”

Hunter leans forward with a sneer. “Not after she got caught on tape letting some other guy stick it to her, huh? Ever think about how many people have whacked off to that tape of hers?”

Without a word, Logan hauls back and punches him in the face. Hunter goes over like a tree, crashing into the naval recruitment booth next door and loosing a cloud of colorful pamphlets.

_______

 

Logan intends to make a quick retreat after punching Hunter. The Pi Sigs are all clustered around their fallen leader and he really doesn’t feel like getting a group beat-down if they decide they want to prove their loyalty.

As he goes to skirt the tipped-over table at the Navy booth, though, the recruiter, a stocky Hispanic guy with a severe brush cut, steps into Logan’s path. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there. Logan glances over at the Pi Sigs—they don’t seem terribly angry, more resigned; perhaps Hunter has a tendency to say stupid things and get punched out for them—so, with an internal sigh, Logan grabs one corner of the table as the recruiter grabs the other and they set it back on its feet.

They work in silence to gather the glossy leaflets and papers scattered around on the ground. The few people who had approached at the commotion drift away, uninterested. Logan can feel the recruiter’s eyes on his back as he stoops to the ground to gather up a set of pamphlets with badass jet planes on them. Logan brings one up to study it a bit more— _navy planes? Is that like the Blue Angels shows DK’s dad used to take us to?_ He flips the pamphlet open. He and Duncan had been obsessed with the idea of flying fighter planes for about a year when they were eight; zooming around their houses and grounds making what they considered to be highly authentic plane and machine gun noises with their mouths. In fact, if he recalls correctly, that was when he’d started calling Duncan DK—it was supposed to be his call sign. Then Duncan had gotten obsessed with sailing and Logan had moved on to dreams of being a WWF wrestler. He smiles a little internally at the memory.

Behind his back, the recruiter finally speaks up. “Well, that was something else, son.” The man’s tone is not admiring. “You ever think about turning some of that aggression toward serving your country?”

Logan looks over his shoulder and scoffs. “Do they teach you to sidle up to impressionable young boys with that line? Are you going to offer me candy if I get in your big white van next?”

The man doesn’t take the bait, returning to silence as the two of them finish picking up the leaflets and papers. _You have to admire his self-possession._ Logan straightens and hands over the stack of pamphlets he’s gathered from the ground. As he does so, the recruiter holds out his hand, “Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Olivera.”

Logan puts the pamphlets down on the table and holds out his hand in automatic response, “that’s quite a mouthful. I thought you guys were all majors or captains or whatever.”

The Senior Chief looks down pointedly at where their hands are still clasped together and arches his eyebrows in question.

Logan frees his hand and steps back, making a courtly half bow, “Logan Echolls, at your service.” In response to the recruiter’s impassive stare, he continues, “Yes, like _those_ Echolls.” He smirks. “Still think Uncle Sam wants me?”

“The Navy wants anyone who is willing to work hard in service to his country.”

Logan snorts, “Even spoiled little rich boys like _moi_?”

Olivera doesn’t blink. “Are you?”

“What?”

“A spoiled little rich boy?”

Logan’s defensive sneer is out in full force. “Everyone knows it.”

“Well then, you’d better move along and stop wasting my time.” Olivera breaks eye contact and reaches out to snag the “Become a Naval Aviator” pamphlet that is clutched in Logan’s hand.

Logan pulls it away with a flourish and looks at it again. Just to mess with the guy, of course.

In a lightly sarcastic tone, he asks. “Pilots in the Navy? I never thought that made much sense. How come the Navy needs pilots if there’s an Air Force?”

Olivera is unfazed. “The Navy commands all of the aircraft carriers in the United States. Each of the carriers packs a bigger punch than most of the armies in the world. We need our own air support in our chain of command to support their missions.”

Logan shrugs a little. That actually makes sense and he can’t think of a smart-ass response. He looks down at his finger, currently tracing along the seam of the plastic table. “So, Navy pilots, that’s like _Top Gun_ , right?” Another part of their eight-year-old obsession.

The recruiter smiles a little for the first time. “Right, but less volleyball.”

Logan looks up and gives the guy a genuine grin, “Well good, I always thought that seemed a little cree—“

“Logan, man, let’s go! It’s ten-thirsty a.m. and I need to get my drink on!” Dick calls from behind him, their earlier quarrel clearly already forgotten. Logan startles a little and looks around. The Pi Sigs have mostly cleared out and Hunter is gone.

Turning his head back to Olivera, Logan raises his eyebrows. “My public awaits,” he says, gesturing toward Dick.

The recruiter purses his lips a little. “We’re here all week.”

Logan pivots and walks away from the table, brochure still clutched in his hand.

 

_______

 

The next day Logan is back, wandering through the activities fair again. He’s just skipping class again, of course. He means to make a large detour around the Navy booth, but Olivera spots him and gives him a challenging look. _Can’t back down from that._ Logan ambles over to the booth. “Miss me?”

“Mr. Echolls.” The recruiter stares at him, silent and expectant. Logan knows the guy is playing with him, but he can’t help jumping in to fill the silence.

“So, what are you doing here anyway? I thought you guys mostly recruited people out of high school.”

“A lot of our ranks are filled out of high school—the military is a great way to pay for college—but we recruit everywhere. For officers, especially, we take a lot of people with bachelor’s degrees.” Olivera’s manner from yesterday is unchanged; calm and intent. _Clearly there was no googling of the Echolls name last night._ The Senior Chief has an aura of quiet competence around him that Logan can’t help be drawn to a little. _This guy is a pretty good advertisement for the Navy._

Logan pulls the edges of his sleeves down over his knuckles. “I thought you had to work your way up?”

“No. You can, of course, but you can commission directly as an officer, too.” A pause. He gives Logan a knowing look. “Our pilots, specifically, have to have bachelor’s degrees and start as officers.”

Logan’s eyes follow an ant that is trundling along a crack in the sidewalk. “How does that work?” he asks, in an offhanded tone.

“Well, you can go to the Naval Academy or join NROTC, or you can go to OCS.”

“OCS?”

Olivera taps his finger on a pamphlet that Logan recognizes from yesterday, featuring a bunch of guys in puke green uniforms running in unison. “Officer Candidate School. Twelve week boot camp and at the end you’re a commissioned officer.”

“Twelve weeks? Doesn’t sound too bad.”

“You need good grades to get into OCS, especially to try for the aviator track. I’d say 3.0 at minimum.”

“3.0 isn’t that hard.”

“What are your grades?”

Logan smirks. “Not a 3.0”

The recruiter spears him with an eagle-eyed glare. “The thing about OCS is, its pretty much the hardest boot camp there is,” the Marine Corps recruiter at the next booth snorts in derision, but Senior Chief Olivera continues smoothly. “It is twelve weeks of pure hell— _Navy_ hell—and the only way to make it through it is if what you want more than anything is to be a Navy officer.” He shakes his head. “Not a pilot—there’s easier ways to do that—not to travel the world; you have to be solely in it to become an officer in the U.S. Navy. A leader of men. If that’s not why you’re there, you’ll never make it through OCS.” He glances down to the table, where Logan’s hands fidget with the edges of several pamphlets. “Take my card,” he nods to a stack on the table, “think about it. Call me if you have any questions.”

He turns his head away and Logan is dismissed. He has the urge to snap off a sarcastic salute. _Probably sign number one that the military would be the worst possible place for you._ Instead, he quietly takes a card from the stack, fingering the edges and turning the card around and around compulsively as he walks away.

 

_______

 

During second semester of Sophomore year, Logan begins going to class more often. Regardless of what Ver—anyone thought, he’s always gone pretty regularly to the classes that interested him. It was just that most of his classes didn’t interest him. Now though, every night he goes to bed figuring he’ll just skip class the next morning and every morning there he is again, at eight am PoliSci or nine-fifteen Econ.

Dick is unimpressed.

Logan’s freshman year GPA had come in at an unimpressive but not debilitating 2.7; this semester he’s pretty sure he should have a 3.5, provided he doesn’t bomb any of his upcoming finals.

The thought plays through his mind, _getting to be closer to a 3.0 overall_. He shakes his head. _What does it matter? It’s not like I’m getting a job at the end of all of this. Who the hell is going to care about my GPA?_

He’s taken to carrying his grandfather’s Korean War lighter around again, something he hadn’t done since Junior year of high school. Logan sticks his hand into his pocket and rubs his thumb across the engraved lettering. He takes the lighter out and flicks the top open and then shut. Open. Shut.

_What would Veronica think?_

_______

 

He and Dick spend the summer before Junior year on their epic surf adventure to Costa Rica—planned, but not taken the previous year.

Dick is both quieter and louder than usual, swinging wildly between steely depression and manic gaiety. Logan knows he is still reeling from the boating accident with Susan Knight a few months earlier.

Logan has started refusing more invites than he accepts from the old Neptune High 09er crowd. The night Dick was on the boat, he was at home alone on the couch, playing _Ace Combat 6_. When Dick stumbled home to the Neptune Grand and managed to choke out the story, Logan’s first thought was a crushing wave of disappointment. _If I’d been on that boat, god knows the law in this town would have found a way to try to pin it on me._ _Then maybe Veronica would have…_

He is overwhelmed with disgust for himself. Susan is dead. Dick is falling further over his own personal cliff, and all Logan can think about is the possibility of Veronica Mars helping him again. He gets shitfaced that night—moreso than he has been in a long time—and cries into his fucking pillow like a fucking baby.

In self-flagellation, he refuses to allow himself to look at Veronica’s number in his phone for months.

 

_______

 

Logan declares a Communications major at the beginning of Junior year. The classes come easily to him and still, at the back of his mind, he wants to stay above 3.0.

In celebration of this momentous decision, he goes out to a bar and promptly knocks the teeth out of some guy who recognizes him and makes a snide remark about his mother. It’s the third guy he’s punched out since Hunter the frat-douche. The fighting is starting to feel good. It fills him; he inhabits it. He doesn’t like to look in the mirror much anymore.

In October, he and Dick hear that Rams has died of an overdose. Logan makes some remark about being an endangered species and Dick laughs a little but both of them go to their rooms early that night. Alone.

Everyone is dead. Everyone is falling away. Logan can’t tell if he is spiraling down or inching his way up. Most of the time it all feels like part of the same fucking futile cycle.

Even Dick, the ever-reliable, is hard to connect with these days. When you are empty to your core what is there to talk about? Logan is so empty he is hollow. He rattles. They mostly seem to settle on television and booze for their conversational gambits.

“Seriously, dude? This is like the third time you’ve watched _An Officer and a Gentleman_ this week.”

Logan shrugs, fondling his grandfather’s lighter. “They’re running a marathon on TCM.”

“Well turn it. I want to watch _Man vs. Food_.”

“Whatever, man. Pass me a beer.”

_______

 

January 30th of Junior year. _Two years._ Thoughts of Veronica are still a constant. _I thought this was supposed to fade; supposed to go away. Ain’t epic love grand?_ Despite his inner sarcasm, Logan has gotten to the point where he pretty much accepts his Veronica-moments. In fact, he has a ritual. Every time he thinks of her, he takes his phone out of his pocket, scrolls down his contact list and stares at her name. _I wonder what she is doing right now?_ He doesn’t call her ever; hasn’t called her since the one phone call right after she left for Stanford. It’s been a year and a half since then, her number could have changed. Probably has changed. It makes him feel a little better, though, to look at her contact information in his phone. To feel like, if he wanted to, he could just push one button and hear her voice. And maybe she’d forgive him. And maybe she’d come back. She won’t, of course, but the hope of it keeps him going. It’s why he won’t ever actually press that button—call her—he thinks. If he did and she was still mad, or she didn’t call him back, or she’d changed her number, then all his hope would be gone. He would have to really, truly accept that it was over for good. As long as he doesn’t call, there’s still the _possibility_ , no matter how faint. He knows it’s superstitious, but if he lost that hope, sometimes he thinks he’d…

Well, he’s not going to call.

 

_______

 

Logan is cruising through the beginning of the semester activities fair again. After one lap, he notes that the military recruiting booths are in the same place as last year, but that the Navy guy isn’t Olivera.

Logan does a few more slow walk-bys, but the recruiter never meets his eye.

Disgusted with the disappointment he feels, Logan speeds off. _Don’t want to be late for class._

There is a recruitment office on campus, he knows, a small little cubby of a room in the student union, tucked in next to the smoothie shop.

It’s because he likes smoothies that he knows where it is. And their hours. And which days of the week the Navy guy is there.

In his pocket, the case of his phone clicks against his grandfather’s lighter with every step.

 

_______

 

After what he is starting to morbidly think of as his annual Veronica whack-fest— _the fuck-iversary_ —Logan holes up for a few days, figuring he’s not really fit company for the outside world. It takes two weeks before he and Dick hit the town again. Once they enter the club, Dick immediately bounds away after a pair of stacked blonde co-eds. Logan scans the room, assessing his options. The redhead at the bar is more cute than pretty, but for some reason she feels like his best option tonight. Something a little different than the tall, statuesque type he’s been mainlining recently. She has on boots and jeans and a sassy little t-shirt and vest combination. She reminds him a little of—he shuts that thought down. She’s alone at the moment— _isolated from the pack_ —which means its time to make his move.

He sidles up to the bar and waves his black Amex at the bartender. “Bottle of Patron over here.” Beside him, the redhead makes a noise of surprise, her attention drawn by his order, just as he’d intended.

She leans over her rum and coke and eyes him a little warily. He pulls out his best charming grin and gives her a little eyebrow action. She caves, nodding at the bottle the bartender sets down in front of him. “Getting ready for some serious drinking?”

He twirls his hands through the air, “You know, ‘Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.’ Phillip Stanhope.”

She snorts a little. “Nice. You a philosophy major?”

“Nope,” He leans his back against the bar, propping himself up on his elbows and stretching himself out in front of her. Her gaze is amused and slightly disdainful. She knows what he is doing. “Although I _am_ taking ‘Philosophy and Literature’ right now for a GenEd requirement.”

At this, She looks up fully into his face for the first time, eager and excited. _Just like Veronica._ “Oh man, you have Sadler? I _loved_ his class. He is so amazing; really makes you look at the world in a different way.”

Logan pulls out a charming smile, eyes empty. _Give her nothing._ “I suppose it might, if I went to class.”

Her smile slips a little. She looks him up and down and tries again. “What’s your major?”

He shrugs. “Damned if I can remember.”

“Well what _do_ you do?”

 _I’m hollow. I rattle._ He leans toward her and smolders, “Only the willing.”

She laughs a little and gives him a searching look, “Boy, there really isn’t much to you, is there?” He can hear the dismissal in her voice and it cuts through his numbness.

The next day he skips class and gets into a brawl with a random drunk dude at the boardwalk.

 

_______

 

A week later, Logan sits on the beach at sunrise, the top half of his wetsuit peeled down to his waist. Normally the beach makes him feel zen, but today he just feels deadened. Cold through, frozen, and useless. He always figured that, if he managed to turn his life around, there would be some big, dramatic, motivating moment. A car crash he survived by an inch and a weepy hospital bedside promise to someone special. A dramatic suicide attempt where he was pulled back from the brink by the love of his life. Really, he just always thought Veronica would be there, kissing him and kicking his ass; _making_ him change. Instead there is just…this. The look on a random girl’s face. The grit of sand between his toes. Himself, alone with the chilling realization that he can keep going as he is and never be anything more than a rich, entitled, waste of space. Or…

Or.

If he gives in to the tantalizing possibility of the “or” what will happen? Will he be able to do it? To stick with it? _You won’t. You’ll break the first time it gets hard. You’re weak. Weak and useless. Everyone knows it; that’s why they leave._ He’s empty. So goddamn empty. He’s hit rock bottom with a whimper, not a bang.

The words of the Navy recruiter come back to him. _(“A leader of men.”)_

He laughs at himself. _This is stupid. You’re stupid._

_Shit._

_What the hell? It can’t be worse than this._

_______

 

Logan shows up at the campus recruitment office the next morning.

It’s a shipshape little room, the three recruiters’ desks fill it almost completely and Logan has to sidle sideways a bit to get to his chair.

The Navy guy is short and wiry. Logan is pretty sure from his sleeve insignia that he’s a Petty Officer, Second Class. What can he say, his brain just holds on to information like that.

“I’m interested in OCS,” Logan starts, somewhat nervously. He expects the guy to have some talk with him about his goals and aspirations. To give him a rah-rah speech about god and country or a long rambling account of What The Navy Has Done For Me.

Instead, the recruiter barely looks up from some paperwork he’s filling out. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a form which he slides in front of Logan.

“Here’s an interest form. You need to fill this out. We’ll do a background check.” Logan’s pen pauses for a second, hovering over the paper _, well, what the hell_ , and he continues writing. While he fills the form out, the guy begins snapping a set of questions at him.

“Drug use?”

“No.”

“Alcohol?”

Snort. “Yes.”

“Better cut back.” _Oh, ‘cause no one in the Navy drinks?_ Logan thinks, but somehow manages not to say.

This guy is kind of a dick, not like Olivera. _Here it is, Echolls, test one. Can you handle a dick? The Navy will have plenty of them; better be able to deal with it if you’re going to join up._ It’s the first time he really mentally articulated to himself what he is going to try. It shakes him up a bit.

“Okay, here’s your steps. One, take the ASTB. We’ll get you set up for that today.”

Logan nods.

“You’ll talk to an officer recruiter. They’ll get you set up with the paperwork.”

Logan nods.

“Then, if the ASTB score is good enough, we’ll submit your package to the board, you’ll take some medical and physical tests, and the board’ll decide whether or not to take you.” He looks at Logan over a stack of papers. “How’re your grades?”

“3.2 GPA.”

“Not bad. You wanna fly planes?”

Logan nods again, suppressing the million sharp retorts that flood his brain. This guy gets his back up for some reason.

“Keep those grades up. They don’t take just any Tom, Dick, or…” he looks down at Logan’s finished form, “Logan.”

He chuckles at his own joke. Logan just nods. The Navy is turning him into a bobblehead.

 _This is a bad idea_ , he thinks as he signs up for a time to take the ASTB. _What was I thinking?_

 

_______

 

He starts to swap out surfing with running in the mornings. One day of hitting the waves, followed by one mile, two mile, eventually five mile runs down the beach.

Dick is ridiculously confused. Logan still hasn’t mentioned, well, anything, but he spends his evenings on his laptop searching for information on Navy OCS and the aviation track. When Dick passes behind him, he hides the screen like a twelve-year-old with porn.

The Navy has a shit-ton of jargon, acronyms and slang. It is confusing, at first, but as he browses forums and blogs he starts to become more fluent in navy-ees. He is a constant ball of doubt. _Can you really see yourself shouting out “Sir, yes sir!”? Or answering questions with, “This Indoctrination Candidate does not know but will find out, Sir!”? The first time one of the Drill Instructors yells at you, you’re going to punch him out._

Logan shakes his head grimly and continues practicing his push-up form on the floor beside his bed.

 

_______

 

Strangely, it is at Dick’s insistence that they move out of the Neptune Grand toward the end of Junior year. There is no explanation or warning, he just comes home one day and says he found a ‘sweet bachelor pad’ that they can ‘go halfsies on.’

In the middle of the move, Logan abruptly gets up from the bed where he is folding t-shirts and marches out to the living room where Dick is packing up (read: throwing haphazardly into a box) their sizable gaming collection.

Logan stands behind the couch, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot before blurting out, “I’m joining the Navy when I graduate.”

Dick snorts. “Cool bro. I thought I’d become the Pope.”

Logan doesn’t respond and the silence stretches out. Slowly Dick turns his head to look at Logan fully.

“You…serious, man?” He asks, in disbelief.

“Yeah.” Says Logan quietly.

“The Navy?”

“And flight school, eventually, I hope.” Logan runs his hands through his hair, barely restraining himself from toeing the carpet.

Dick blinks a bit, then swallows and drops his gaze to rummage around in the stack of games at his feet. He holds up the box for _Ace Combat: Assault Horizon_ and wiggles it back and forth a little. “We’ll play this tonight. Get you in fighting form in no time.” He digs through the box. “I think I’ve even got the flight stick controller somewhere…”

Logan smiles tentatively and flops over the back of the couch to land hard on the cushions. “I think I’ve put in enough hours on that thing to skip flight training, don’t you.”

“Totally,” Dick laughs, a trifle uneasily but gamely and slaps Logan on the shoulder.

Logan slaps him back.

The next morning Dick joins him on his run. He makes it about half a mile before flopping down on the sand. They agree to stick to surfing man-dates.

 

_______

 

Senior year passes in a blur. Logan’s grades are good. His push-ups and crunches are in prime form and he can run seven miles without breaking a sweat.

The board results come back. He’s been accepted to OCS.

He hasn’t used a quote as his voicemail message in years, but if he did, he’d change it right now to, “Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature,” C.S. Lewis.

Now the only thing left is to wait and see if final selection puts him on the aviation track.

Logan still has deep feelings of ambivalence about the whole thing. He vacillates between _what the hell am I doing?_ and knowing that this might be his only shot. His only chance to fill himself up with something good instead of something toxic.

He opts not to do the college graduation ceremony. It would be just another sad reminder that there’s no one in the crowd there for him. Instead, Logan’s degree will be mailed to his place of residence in six to eight weeks. But in six to eight weeks he won’t be at his place of residence.

OCS is in Newport, Rhode Island. Logan receives his orders to report on June 12th, to his mingled excitement and terror. He has been selected for the pilot track, completed his physical exam and physical fitness test, and is now just waiting to be part of class 19-10.

Dick decides that they need one last blow out, before, as he puts it, “you go to navy school or whatever,” so he throws a major rager at the beach house he will soon be occupying solo. Dick claims he’s looking forward to Logan being gone—“you’re cramping my style, man”—but Logan can see the fear buried deep in his eyes. That guilt, just one more among all of his many other guilts, is a bruise Logan tries not to prod.

The party is in full swing; music thumping, guests Logan has never met before spilling out onto the deck and the beach. Dick is working the room like the good host he is. Logan appreciates the effort; really, he does. But, about an hour into the party, he is sick of it, sick of everything, so he slips out of the grasping hands of some overly-made up female leech and heads back to his bedroom.

He flops down on his bed, throwing one arm over his eyes and breathing out heavily. He has been filled with a strange, heavy sense of sadness these last few weeks. He thinks about his mother. He thinks about Lilly. He thinks about Dick, thinks about Duncan. He thinks about…

Logan takes out his phone, scrolls down the contact list to Veronica’s name and stares at it, his fingers lightly stroking over the keys. _Where is she? What is she doing right now?_

He’s googled her a few times since she fled. Mostly drunken. Always fruitless. Her name is everywhere—all over articles and police blotters—up until she left for Stanford. Then nothing. No mentions of her foiling a dog-napping ring, or taking down a bad guy, or, hell, stealing the Hope diamond. It’s like she’s dropped off the face of the earth. He knew, although she didn’t say it in so many words, that Veronica intended to give up the PI business when she left Neptune, but he honestly never expected her to stick with it. He figured she’s give it a few months, a year maybe, then she’d be sucked right back in. Veronica is so intertwined in his mind with sleuthing that it is hard to imagine her doing anything else. What does she do with all her free time? _Probably study. Yeah, Veronica would study._ And? His fingers brush rhythmically across the phone keys. _Probably hang out with her friends._ He puts the phone down. _Her boyfriend. She has one. She’s probably had a dozen._

His phone joins his grandfather’s lighter on his bedside table and Logan tries, vainly, to get some sleep.

 

_______

 

Dick drives him to the airport; he had been incredulous and hurt when Logan suggested taking a cab.

They park at in the drop-off lane at LAX and Dick unbuckles his seatbelt before turning to Logan with an oddly serious expression on his face. “Look, man, you know you don’t have to do this.”

Logan tries to play it off. “Of course I don’t have to. I mean, the Navy didn’t exactly hold a gun to my head. I made this decision.”

Dick spears his hands through his hair, tugging a bit in frustration. “I just mean if this is about proving something to Ronnie or,” his voice drops, “you know, your dad—“

“Jesus, Dick. No.” _Okay, maybe the Veronica one, a little._ “This is just…something I need to do.”

“Okay then, uh,” Dick holds his hand out awkwardly for a shake, “be safe, um, navy-ing.”

Logan snorts, grabs Dick’s hand and pulls him in for a back-slapping bro-hug.

“Yeah, man. You try not to get yourself killed either,” He is joking-serious about that, Dick has stabilized a little in the last year, but his lifestyle is still pretty volatile. “And avoid the Clap.”

 

_______

 

At least half the battle in Logan’s first days at OCS is training himself to think in navy jargon. He keeps a running dictionary in his head. Stand at attention ( _lock_ ). Physical Training ( _PT_ or _RPT_ ). To be held back from your class ( _rolled_ ). OCS is a bizarre maze of rules that Logan can’t help mentally snarking at. For example, he discovers that new candidates ( _Indocs_ ) aren’t allowed to cross from one side of the hallway to another ( _cutting the deck_ ). They have to walk with their shoulders four inches from the wall ( _bulkhead_ ), keeping the bulkhead always on their right. To get to the other side of a hallway, they have to walk the entire length of the hall, make precise turns, and walk back on the opposite side of the hall (again four inches away from the wall, always keeping it on their right). _We look like a mass of directionally challenged lemmings._

On the first Wednesday they “meet” their Drill Instructor, a stocky bull of a guy wearing the world’s most ridiculous hat. He introduces himself by busting into their hallway at zero-dark-thirty with a group of Candidate Officers. All of them are screaming at the top of their lungs as they roust all of the Indocs into the hallway.

As they jolt out of their beds ( _racks_ ), frantic and bumping into each other in the dark, one of the Candios barks, "Indoctrination Candidates, welcome to Officer Candidate School, one of the finest Officer training programs in our country! Here you will be challenged! Everything you do at OCS will be executed with SPEED! VOLUME! And INTENSITY!"

The hallway is crawling with yelling, screaming humanity. A hand is in Logan’s face, and he can feel spit hitting his cheek as he scrambles into place, heart pounding. He’d done research, knew the infamous Wake-up Wednesday was coming and thought he was prepared for it, but he’s not. He’s not. They dive right into intense PT. Sit-ups, push ups, pull ups, leg lifts, side straddle hops. Up, down, up, down. “Sir, yes, sir!” Speed! Volume! Intensity! The next fifty minutes are an utter blur. Flashbulb images are burned into Logan’s brain and his body is in flight mode, muscles trembling, sweat streaming, doing everything he can to survive.

They are doing squats, arms held out straight in front of them, bodies torqued to an extreme degree, when Logan reaches his hand up to rub along his eyebrow.

And suddenly there is Aaron, face tomato-red and screaming, screaming right in front of him. Logan’s heart is racing out of his chest.

Aaron is screaming. Aaron is hitting him. He opens his mouth to make a cutting comment. _May as well make it count._ When his focus suddenly snaps back and he sees the Drill Instructor again. _Not Aaron. It’s not Aaron._ The DI is yelling what sounds like a stream of nonsense syllables. Logan locks his eyes front and, at what seems to be a pause in the flow of shouting, he screams, “Sir, yes sir!” It appears to be the right response because the Drill Instructor moves on down the line.

Sweat is rolling down Logan’s spine, pooling in the small of his back. A fine trembling is coursing through him. _Jesus. This was the stupidest fucking decision I’ve ever made. Sadistic bastard._ He’s not sure if he’d talking about the DI or himself.

The DI must sense weakness because he is on Logan’s ass all day. By that afternoon, he has figured out who Logan is and has taken to calling him “movie star” in a mocking, crooning voice.

While he is bear-crawling through the sand pit; “Not used to having your face in the dirt, _mooovie_ star? Want to quit, _mooovie_ star?”

While he is running, toward the head of the group, “Used to running, are you, _mooovie_ star? So many beautiful women chasing after you that you had to come here to escape them? Run! Faster!”

Logan has been signaled out as a weak link and, much like a hyena with a wounded gazelle, the DI spends extra time circling him and nipping at his heels, trying to break him. _Keep trying, you sadistic fuck. Better men than you have failed._

“Push, movie star!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

The demands are ridiculous and impossible—on purpose, Logan knows, although the knowledge doesn’t really help.

“You have ten seconds to return to your locker, put on your PT gear, and fall back in line. Ready; MOVE!”

They scramble, knocking into each other.

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Four! One! Zero! You’re done! You’re done! FREEZE!”

They freeze. “You are a miserable failure, class 19-10. This must be the weakest class the Navy has ever assembled.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Five guys in his class drop out ( _DOR_ ) that day.

That night Logan lies in his rack, staring at the popcorn stucco on the ceiling. His body is one giant ache. The rack is ridiculously uncomfortable. He misses the silky sheets of his bed at home. He misses… _Lucky you don’t have any family to miss like the rest of these guys._ He’s been getting glares from his class all evening ever since the DI decided that a ‘ _moooovie_ star’s’ presence meant they all needed to work on their abs, resulting in thirty extra minutes of crunches. Running through Logan’s mind is one thought. _What the fuck am I doing here?_

 

_______

 

She is perched on the edge of the bed, legs tucked up under her, wearing one of his light blue shirts that she used to like to sleep in when she stayed over.

Leaning over him, she smiles, tucking her hair behind her ears as it swings forward. He can feel himself smiling back at her, a tender curve to his lips that feels unused. Rusty.  _Bobcat._

She begins stroking her hand, feather-lightly, up and down his arm, tracing his skin with her fingertips, skating from his wrist up to his shoulder and back. The faint snag of the rough edge of a fingernail sends goosebumps coursing over him.

Her hand sweeps up to briefly cup the ball of his shoulder and then her fingers trail across his clavicle, caressing lightly up his neck before returning to his chest. Gently, all the time, softly, and she’s smiling.

They part their lips at the same time.

“I love you.”

At first he doesn’t know who said it—her or him—but then he hears it again and again, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” It’s her. She repeats the words over and over, stroking him all the while, and it’s really her. It must really be Veronica, not a dream, because she isn’t some overblown fantasy version of herself—he can see the pillow creases in her cheeks and sleep crud at the corners of her eyes—and she isn’t saying “I love you” in the way dream-Veronica might—passionately, assuredly—she’s saying it the way real-Veronica would. She’s hesitant; she’s terrified; she’s angry. She loves him.

“I love you,” apprehensive, a caress of his elbow. “I love you,” sarcastic, smoothing both hands over his chest. “I love you,” determined, but with fear in her eyes, the brush of her hand across his cheek.

He is undone and he is open and she loves him.

Logan wakes up thirty minutes before reveille, strangely calm and with a centered feeling in his bones. That day he doesn’t flinch once when the Drill Instructor yells in his face.

 

_______

 

After Indoc Week, their days alternate between intense physical activity, getting yelled at by anyone who happens to pass by, and lengthy, tedious classes that can only be designed to test candidates’ ability to stay awake. The Drill Instructor still singles Logan out, still calls him ‘movie star,’ but he’s starting to let it become part of the wallpaper.

It is an odd experience, one that Logan sometimes feels like he is observing from outside himself. He can tell what they are trying to do—actually they are pretty upfront about it. OCS isn’t really about preparing the candidates to be good officers; it is about seeing what they can handle, weeding out the weak and the unqualified. The constant physical and mental stresses, the yelling; they are all part of making sure you have the desire and the ability to function in a high-stress environment for long periods of time.

Logan doesn’t. He knows he doesn’t. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t, but he’s determined not to let those assholes beat him.

 

_______

 

Fifty guys have ten minutes to use the five shower stalls, brush their teeth, and prepare for bed. They stand at attention for hours upon endless hours. His feet throb with every step.

_______

 

Sprints. Down, up, down, up.

“You ready to DOR yet, movie star?”

“Sir, no sir!”

_I don’t know why I’m here, but you’re not going to make me quit._

_______

 

The guys in his class are surprisingly…cool. Normal. They’ve mostly gotten past the ‘movie star’ thing. It’s hard not to start to bond at least a little after hours rolling around in the mud together. He’d sort of thought it might be like hanging out with a bunch of meathead jocks, but there are all different kinds of guys at OCS. And girls too.

In the mess hall, he often sits next to a woman who had the misfortune to show up for the first day of OCS in what some of the guys apparently considered a low cut shirt. A few of them call her LAMB (for “look at my boobs.”) Logan doesn’t. He likes her, actually. She’s a short little fireplug who has no doubt whatsoever that she will successfully become the third generation in her family to fly helos for the Navy. She appears completely unfazed by the nickname. When one of the other girls in the class asks her about it, she just shrugs and says, “three older brothers and my father all in the military. I’m not really bothered by anything.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I’m going to be a Navy Officer and a Naval Aviator. The rest is just noise.” Logan blinks at her confidence in herself. _I’m going to be a Navy Officer_ , he tries it out in his mind. It sounds weird. Tentative.

 

He can’t help but think that Veronica would be a navy badass, too.

 

_______

 

Running. Drills. Yelling ‘ballistically.’ “Aye sir!” Outpost. “Yes ma’am!” Chow. RLP Inspections. Sweepers. Sand Pits. People are rolling out of his class right and left. _I’m going to be a navy officer._

 

_______

 

There is something really fucking zen about running in the middle of a mass of candidates; arms and legs pumping in unison, shouting chants out into the humid air.

 

_______

 

Academic phase. Open study time. Naval Operations class. More RLP. Navigation class. Gouge. Greeting of the day. Weapons class. High ropes course. _I have never been this tired in my life. I am going to be a fucking naval officer and you can’t stop me._

 

_______

 

He falls into his rack every night. If he’s lucky she’s there. She’s there and she loves him.

 

_______

 

Exams, exams, exams and the Victory run. They are Candidate Officers, now; in charge and yelling at the new Indoc Candidates. The Indocs yell, “Sir, yes, sir!” back and it fills him. Logan looks at the guys in his class. No one has rolled in a week. _We are going to make it. We are going to make it._

 

_______

 

Evolutions. Firefighting. Emergency drills. Logan doesn’t touch his face any more. Ever. He leaves that up to dream-Veronica.

 

_______

 

Then it is almost here. OCS Graduation.

It feels like the ceremony should maybe be a bigger deal for him—it sure is for everyone else. Most of the candidates in his class have people flying in from all over the country for “Hi Moms” and the ceremony. Happy families. Happy wives.

Logan can’t really feel it, though. It doesn’t seem quite real and it’s starting to sink in what a small first step this is on the long, long road to flying jets for the Navy. _I’m in this now. No backing out._ So when the ceremony comes around, he salutes, and drills, and smiles, and backslaps and meets the other guys’ families.

He is an Ensign. Ensign Logan Echolls, USN. An officer in the Navy. _I am a Navy Officer._ He moves through the day a little robotically.

At the waterfront, during the last part of the ceremony, the Drill Instructor salutes him. Logan now outranks him. They eye each other. It’s not a Hallmark movie. The DI doesn’t clap him on the shoulder and call him son. Neither covertly wipes tears from his eyes. But it is a moment.

Then it is on to Pensacola and flight school.

 

_______

 

Perhaps ironically, it is successfully finishing OCS that finally gets Logan to see a therapist. If he can handle all of that—being yelled at constantly, crawling through sand, sadistic DIs—and not crack, he figures that maybe he is finally at the point where he can deal with some of his shitty past instead of just being overwhelmed by it.

The Navy has a bevy of psychologists on staff, but he finds a small clinic an hour away from base in Pensacola and pays privately instead of going through his health insurance. He settles on a frumpy middle-aged woman whose voice reminds him vaguely of Marion Cunningham from _Happy Days_.

Of course, with all of his issues—childhood abuse and an alkie mom who swan dived off a bridge; dead first loves and murder charges— _of course_ what she zeroes in on by their third session is Veronica.

“So, Veronica transferred and moved away and you never heard from her again.”

Logan picks at a loose thread on the armrest of his chair, then purses his lips in annoyance and forces himself to stop the fidgeting. He sits up straight and answers calmly. “Yes.”

“Do you blame her or yourself for that?”

He laughs dryly, back still straight. "Yes."

“Why didn't you go after her?”

“What?” His shoulders slump a little in surprise.

“Did she tell you not to call her or visit her?”

“I’m pretty sure it was implied,” he manages, sardonically.

“Look back at what you've told me about Veronica. She was your 'one.' You two were 'epic' and fated' but after your last break up you started dating again fairly quickly. And when she moved away you didn't go after her or try to stop her. What does that say to you?”

“I don't know. That my masochistic tendencies surprisingly have their limits?”

She just stares at him in that irritatingly expectant way therapists have.

He makes an agitated sound; half laugh, half grunt. “Look, I wanted _her_ , but I didn't want that relationship. Not again.” He shakes his head. “I saw it, you know. I saw how bad I was for her. How she didn’t trust me. I tried…but then she—” Logan breaks off in frustration and looks down at his fingers, laced together in his lap, gripping until the knuckles are white. “I love her, but I couldn’t be with her because she doesn't love me.”

“She doesn't?” Her voice is neutral.

“Not enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“To stay,” he whispers. 

All in all, he doesn’t really know if therapy is helping. He’s uneasy about the whole thing and doesn’t really like the emotions it stirs up in him. Logan is distantly aware that he’s trying to live out some sort of cheap movie montage with this whole therapy shebang. _Whenever the character with the crappy past turns their life around and becomes a stable adult, they always go to therapy, don’t they?_

Far be it from an Echolls to question the Hollywood narrative.

 

_______

 

Before he starts training to fly sixty million dollar jets, the Navy, surprisingly enough, wants to make sure he can fly a regular plane _. I suppose the hours upon hours of diligent video game flying I put in mean nothing to the Navy._ He’s learning to say these things in his head, not out loud.

Introductory Flight school is cake, say most of the guys. They don’t plan to study anything beyond the beer list down at Hopjacks. They’re not too worried about the syllabus. Easy flying.

Logan spends most of the evenings of the first week alone in his room staring at his course syllabus. This is starting to matter to him; starting to become real. He’s never really had a dream for his future before, not beyond Veronica. _It figures that, when I pick something, I pick the hardest thing there is. I can’t fuck this up now._

The material is pretty easy for him to grasp. His first few training runs in the co-pilot’s seat are both thrilling and routine.

Then comes his first solo fight. He’s a little giddy with disbelief. _They’re actually going to let me do this?_

There is endless pre-flight, some last tips from Tim, his instructor, (“don’t wreck the plane,” he says; Logan likes Tim) and then, finally, take-off.

Pensacola is magical from the air. Like a post card or a movie set. The late August sky is a bright, piercing blue that surrounds him and fills his senses. The plane flies like a homesick angel, free of the weight of an extra passenger and soaring. Instinctively, he looks to the side to check with the non-existent instructor that he is doing everything right. There is no one there, of course. _Whoa._

He carefully levels the plane off and starts on the loop that is his prescribed course, diligently checking the instruments, feeling the steering yoke respond to his movements.

Logan takes it in. Thin, wispy clouds skim across the sky just below his field of vision. Ahead of him, the Pensacola coastline curves out in a vast, unending parabola. He can see movement below; tiny cars, miniscule people, thin white lines of breaking surf as the ocean nears the beach.

Alone, up in the silent blue, it is just him and his skills and the sky. He thought it might be scary; that the responsibility might be crushing; that’d he’d be filled with doubts. Logan laughs and a grin splits his face.

It feels like a fucking home he never knew he had.

_I can not fuck this up. I have to do this. I need this._

_______

 

Primary flight training is a lot more intense than IFS or even API. Logan and his class spend hours in the classroom learning the basics of aircraft systems, emergency procedures, takeoff and landing, limited maneuvers, spins, instruments. The list is dizzying and unending.

One day, after a particularly stultifying morning walking the tarmac in the muggy Florida heat, followed by hours of lecture on radio systems navigation, a guy named Andrews starts to doze off in the back of the room.

The instructor chews him out, sends him home for the day and starts in on a truly epic lecture.

“The thing is, gentlemen, that the rules that we live by are written in blood. Every instrument check you do. Every hand signal. Every little precaution that you may find meaningless or redundant is there because one time, when it wasn’t, someone died.”

 _The rules that we live by are written in blood._ Logan is sobered. _I can not fuck this up._ Every day is a new reminder of how hard his chosen path is and of how necessary it is that he stay on it.

Three months into Primary it comes around again. January 30th. _Four years. Happy fuck-iversay._ There’s still sadness there and a little bitterness too, but it’s different this year. He is busy. He has a lot to think about. Insane amounts of information to memorize. Flight hours to log.

Still, though, on that day he spends some alone time in the shower, his hand on himself and his mind on Veronica. He still dreams about her constantly, about their last time, about _you’re out of my life forever_ , and sometimes, when he really needs her, about _I love you, I love you, I love you._

In Pensacola, he takes up a practice he’s never really engaged in before; dating. He’s always either jumped right into a monogamous relationship, only to inevitably be cheated on or dumped; or he’s banged a series of meaningless fuckbuddies. This dating thing—taking a girl to a restaurant, seeing her a few times, maybe having sex, maybe not—it is new, but he likes it. It fits his movie montage.

He has no time (or desire, but he doesn’t go there) for a permanent girlfriend, anyway. Somehow, in the transition from OCS to Primary, he has become wholly focused on one mission. Become a Naval Aviator. Fly jets for the Navy.

He is consumed by it. He _needs_ to be consumed by it or it won’t happen.

The whole system of aviator training is all about the numbers. Scores. Everything is scored and the Student Naval Aviators are ranked through what often seems to the SNAs to be a somewhat random process. All Logan knows is that only the top few in each class are selected for tailhook and strike training. Only the top few get the chance to fly jets. During some classes, due to the “needs of the Navy,” no one is selected to fly jets. He tries to toe the company line about it _, the needs of the Navy, the needs of the Navy_ , but he’s frankly terrified he won’t measure up.

 

_______

 

Logan has been using his navy email account more and more consistently, so he’s decided to finally clean out and close up the hotmail account he’s had since high school. He goes through the inbox, deleting most messages, printing out or forwarding a few emails that have important personal information. His heart starts to beat a little more insistently as he gets closer and closer to the unnamed folder he hasn’t opened in over a year.

There isn’t a lot in there; email had never been much a part of their relationship. A few snappy messages back and forth, but they’d always done most of their connecting in person or on the phone.

He gets ready to copy the folder over wholesale to his new account without opening any of the messages, but he can’t help it. It is right there. It may as well be lit up in neon lights.

Her last one. No subject heading, stilted and awkward and so un-Veronica that it has his heart in his throat just thinking about it.

If he closes his eyes, Logan can still see it all unfold; he’s relived the memory often enough.

With Dick staying in Neptune with his Dad for the summer and Veronica off at her FBI internship, Logan had rented a beach house down in Tijuana. It seemed appropriate to lay low at the site of so many of his past misdeeds. He spent the summer internet-less and drunk off his ass, returning to Hearst the day before classes were scheduled to start. It wasn’t until two days later that he opened his hotmail account. Her email was weeks old already.

 _Logan_ _,_

_I just found out that I got accepted to Stanford. I’m going to go. You know I always wanted to get out of Neptune and I think it is best for everyone if I do that. I’m sorry to tell you like this, but I’m going be gone before you get back from wherever it is that you are._

_I hope that you have a good Sophomore year, Logan, and, despite everything that I said, I still wish you well._

_Veronica_

He’d scrambled for his phone, frantic, scrolling down and selecting her number before conscious thought even returned. _Nononononono._

She picked up. He could hear her take in a deep, steadying breath before she spoke. “Hey.”

It erupted out of him, “ _‘I still wish you well,’_ Veronica? Seriously?”

“I do,” she said in a small voice.

“Well that’s just great.” Logan could hear the biting sarcasm in his voice and he hated it, but he needed it. It was the only thing hiding the fear.

It seemed to brace her too, because she regained a bit of her own bite, “This isn’t about you, Logan. It’s _Stanford_.”

“What about your dad?” He was desperate, must have been desperate if he was invoking Keith Mars.

“He’s fine with this. _He_ wants what is best for me.” There was a pause. He could almost see her, eyes closed, fingers pressed against her forehead as if massaging away the headache that is him. Her voice softened again. “Please, Logan. I need this.” _She needs this. Needs this. She never needs anything. Not from me._ He could feel a giant chasm opening beneath his feet. He deflated, everything rushing out of him, fear, anger, everything.

“Yeah, okay, great then. Have a great life.” His voice sounded detached. Separate from him.

“Logan, that’s not what—” a voice called from the background, faint but audible, _“Come on Veronica! The film festival is already starting!”_ He could hear the muffled sound of Veronica covering the phone with her hand. “Just one minute!” she shouted. She came back on the line, “Logan, that isn’t—”

This time he cut in— _can’t let her say it, say it yourself_ —“You know what, Veronica? Maybe you’re right. Stanford, huh? I’m really—” he choked a little, hating himself, “—I’m really happy for you. Goodbye, Veronica.”

He had hung up, cutting off her partially uttered, “Lo—” and carefully placed the phone on the bed before going quietly and utterly to pieces.

 

_______

 

Getting selected for the Advanced Strike Pipeline—flying jets—is just one more achievement that Logan doesn’t let himself celebrate, doesn’t let himself feel. _You still have at least a year of training and dozens of opportunities to let this slip through your fingers._

After Logan makes the move to Kingsville, Texas, but before his Advanced flight training starts, Dick makes plans to fly in for a visit. They haven’t seen each other in almost eight months and have barely spoken for the last two. Their talks on the phone have become brief, awkward and pause filled. Dick rhapsodizes about the surf, booze, and girl filled life he seems to forget Logan doesn’t want anymore and Logan tries to digest the intensity of Naval Aviator training down into condensable, Dick-sized bites. It seems existentially-appropriate and unutterably sad that, in pursuit of this new life he’s determined to have, Logan is somehow leaving behind the one good thing he’d like to hang on to. His one and only tie to his past.

Before Dick arrives, Logan is filled with unease, fearing a long awkward visit punctuated by tortured silences. Thankfully, it turns out that proximity turns them into brothers again; able to pick up their easy banter and share a comfortable silence.

A day into Dick’s visit they are sitting on the small balcony attached to the rear of Logan’s apartment, drinking with their feet propped up on the railing.

Dick belches. “Okay, give me another one.”

Logan arches his neck to get away from the regurgitated beer fumes, swiping his foot at Dick’s leg in remonstrance, before offering up, “Bohica.”

Dick’s face screws up in concentration. He loves the obscene naval acronyms but can’t figure them out for shit. “Um,” he says, taking a swig of his beer, “Bitch-ass officers have it…crap ass.” He gives up, throwing out random swear words.

Logan nearly snorts beer out his nose. “’Bend over, here it comes again,’ actually, but I like your version better. Think I’m going to try that one out in the Ready Room next week.”

“Give me another.”

 

_______

 

Advanced is hard, but it’s hard in what has become a familiar way. They are studying the intricacies of tailhook jets—jets that are specially built to be able to take off and land on the Navy’s aircraft carriers. As a pilot, Logan needs to be familiar with every single system, every button, every knob, every gear on his aircraft. They drill endlessly, flying flight simulators and—finally, finally—flying actual jets.

Logan pulls twelve hour days on base only to come home—incredibly sore and covered in sweat—and spend many more hours studying and preparing for his flight the next day.

He starts dating a really nice girl. Amy. She is a student at the Texas A&M satellite campus in Kingsville and is almost as busy as he is. He cancels dates for unplanned night maneuvers. She cancels dates for emergency counseling sessions at the Student Crisis Center where she works. When they do get together it is light and easy and surprisingly sweet. Amy is a little serious—many of his jokes and references fly right over her head. She starts introducing him to people as her boyfriend without much discussion and he is surprised to find himself fine with it.

He still has what he thinks of as the I-Love-You-Veronica dream regularly. She comes to him in times of stress. He doesn’t tell his therapist.

With all of his moves required by his training, Thad is the third therapist he’s gone through. Thad, like all of the others, is fixated on Veronica as something holding Logan back. He thinks Logan needs “closure.” _If there was ever a therapy cliché._ Logan is pretty sure that nearly five years of radio silence counts as closure, but Thad doesn’t seem to think so.

After Thad pushes him for sixth time to call Veronica, (“Just call her. Tell here where you are now. Let her go.”) Logan slams out of his office in a fit of the temper he rarely allows himself to display anymore.

He tells himself it is the pushing that annoys him _. I thought therapists weren’t supposed to lead you. I thought they were supposed to be neutral._ Really, it is Thad’s unprofessionalism that bothers him.

He ignores the small voice in the back of his mind that says, _never letting her go. Never._

 

_______

 

Everyone says landing a jet on an aircraft carrier is like parking on a postage stamp. They’re not wrong. From the air an aircraft carrier, immense up close, looks like a little toy.

The very last phase of his naval aviator training is carrier qualifications. He has to prove that he can launch and land his jet with a high degree of accuracy. If he doesn’t, he’ll never be a pilot and everything he’s worked for over the last two years will crumble to dust.

Every take off and every landing is graded. Too low of a score and he fails. His eight years in the Navy will be spent in some other job.

On the flight deck of the _USS Carl Vinson_ , Logan sits in the cockpit waiting for the signal to launch. He knows what is going to happen intellectually—they’ve been trained, done dry runs, flown simulators—but there is something different about actually knowing that you are sitting on top of a catapult that can send 48,000 pounds of plane rocketing into the air from zero to one hundred and sixty-five miles per hour in about two seconds. He’s not nervous, precisely, but he is hyper-aware. Every little detail seems to stand out as if lined in black.

Outside the plane, the Flight Ops crew is finishing their checks, communicating with him and each other through an elaborate routine of choreography.

Then it’s three, two, one, go! A jolt forward and he is launched, up in his familiar home once again. Logan grins into his mask.

_I’ve got this._

_______

 

Standing at attention at his winging ceremony, Logan’s stomach is in a knot and he doesn’t know why.

The Master of Ceremonies is droning on—talking about the history of the occasion, recognizing spouses, describing the planes they’ll fly and the next steps in formal, flowery language. Logan perks up a little when they mention the E/A-18G Growler— _my baby_ —and highlight it as the Navy’s newest, “state-of-the-art” plane.

Then the winging begins. They work their way down the line, each new Naval Aviator having his or her wings pinned on by a spouse, parent, or loved one. Some have only their immediate family there, some are surrounded by whole crowds of cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. One thing Logan didn’t anticipate about the Navy is how family focused it is; how every ceremony and every advancement is an opportunity for loved ones to gather and kiss and cry and beam.

Milligan gets his wings pinned by his mother; she struggles a little to get the pin through the thick fabric of the dress whites, but grins the whole time, happy tears in her eyes.

Poythress gets his wings pinned by his immensely pregnant wife. She is so nervous that she almost drops them, causing a ripple of amusement to run through the crowd. Poythress hugs her hard, after, and murmurs into her hair.

Robertson’s father and grandfather pin his wings on together, one on either side, clapping him on the back.

Then comes Logan’s turn. They read his bio out loud, “LT, JG. Logan Echolls, USN, who was named to the Commodore's List during Primary Flight Training and earned two Navy "E's" for bombing accuracy during Advanced Jet Flight Training. He carrier qualified in the T-45C on board the _USS Carl Vinson_ on May 28th. Echolls completed Advanced Jet Flight Training with Training Squadron Six.” The crowd claps politely.

Toward the front of the room, Dick stands up, clapping his hands over his head emphatically and then cupping them around his mouth and whooping loudly. It is completely inappropriate for the occasion and completely Dick. Logan can’t help grinning. Next to Dick, Amy slumps down a little further in her seat, cringing in embarrassment. Logan had been surprised she wanted to come to the ceremony. Both of them know that when he leaves Kingsville they will break up. It is a natural ending to a relationship that never really went beyond the surface. But when Amy had asked him to get her a ticket, Logan couldn’t resist doubling his number of attendees in the audience and he complied.

One of the Instructor Pilots steps up to Logan and briskly and efficiently pins the wings on. The deed is done before he can really register the moment. The IP holds out his hand for Logan to shake and the photographer snaps a formal picture as they smile at each other. The crowd claps again and Dick whoops again. On his way off the stage, Logan throws Dick a quick faux-salute, causing the crowd to laugh nervously.

The newly minted Naval Aviators take seats in the front row as the Master of Ceremonies makes a speech, extolling the two years of intense training the men underwent as SNAs and flogging on about their new responsibilities. The little kids in the audience are starting to shift uncomfortably. The MOC hits his crescendo. Flying, he tells them, is a skill set, but what they were really hired to do was to be leaders.

 _Leader of men._ Logan thinks briefly of Olivera. Thinks of himself at Hearst. He feels…god, he doesn’t know.

 

_______

 

That evening, having shaken off his company (Amy, fairly easily, Dick with extreme difficulty) Logan makes his way down the beach alone, cautious in his formal dress shoes, a single long necked beer bottle dangling from his fingers.

He sits down somewhat gingerly, willing to expose his Service Dress Whites to the sand, but not wanting to make too big a mess of it. _I’m the one who has to clean them up, after all._ He takes his grandfather’s lighter out of his pocket and, in a now familiar and comforting gesture, rubs his thumb across the engraved letters before flicking the top open and shut.

He pops the cap off of his beer and takes a long pull and then gazes out at the horizon where the sun is beginning to set. _I did it._

He feels suddenly giddy and fingers his newly pinned on wings. _I did it; I did it._ Relief and accomplishment roll over him in waves. _Finally. Finally._

He grins widely at the empty beach and tips his bottle upwards in a salute to the horizon. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” he says out loud, foolishly. He doesn’t know who he is talking to—Veronica as he remembers her, maybe; or a younger version of himself; hell, even Veronica now, wherever she may be—but he is happy and proud. Of himself. He is proud of himself. He rolls the new thought around in his mind, testing it out. _I am proud of myself. I did this and no one can ever take it away._

The sun slowly sinks down below the horizon as Logan drinks his beer and runs a finger tip over the smooth edges of his wings.

 

_______

 

In celebration of his new adult status, Logan visits Thad for what he figures will be the last time. A victory lap, if you will. Movie montage complete. He sits in Thad’s office, happily babbling about getting assigned to a Fleet Replacement Squadron and starting his training on the Growler. Maybe he’ll be in a regular squad and able to settle down soon. He hopes he gets assigned to NAS Whidbey Island. Veronica told him once that there are enormous pods of gray whales there; he’d like to see that.

Thad, who has been sitting quietly, letting Logan ramble on up to this point, breaks in. “Did you call her?”

Logan immediately shuts down. “Could we not,” he says flatly.

“Logan, you brought her up.”

He is done. He is so done with all of this shit. His tone is even and firm. “I told you I wasn’t going to call her. I haven’t called her.”

“I still think you need some closure. You need to tell her what you’ve told me so that you can finally move on from what she represents.”

Logan fires up. “Look. _I_ got myself here. _I_ became a Naval Aviator and if _I_ don’t want closure with a long-ex girlfriend then _I_ don’t need it.”

He stands up, his movements precise and controlled, and leaves the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

 

_______

 

He winds up assigned to NAS North Island in San Diego. Part of him is happy to be returning home—at least he’ll be able to reconnect with Dick and there will be surfing—but most of him wishes for another assignment; another fresh start.

It has been years since Neptune was his place of residence but…it is still home.

He spends a few months in the Fleet Replacement Squadron, training intensely on the Growler, doing endless qualifying runs and waiting for a permanent squad assignment.

On his first day at NAS North Island, he is in a bathroom stall when he hears two guys come in and linger at the sink. Likely checking their uniforms.

“Hey, d’you remember that actor from that movie _The Long Haul_?”

Logan’s stomach drops.

“Yeah, he was on trial for that thing with that girl? What was his name?”

“Echolls. Anyway, I hear his kid is an Aviator—jets, if you can believe it—and he just got assigned here.”

“No shit.” The man sounds mostly uninterested. Logan’s life is idle hand-washing conversation. “He’d have to be, like, rich, right?” He shakes his head. “Guess he didn’t join up to pay the bills.”

The other guy chuckles and they both exit the bathroom.

Every time he transitions into a new class—a new group of guys—there is the initial unease as they first figure out and then react to who he is. Some of guys inevitably avoid him, some harass him a little, most try to pretend it doesn’t matter to them and, to a very small few, sometimes it doesn’t. Usually, within a month or two they have assimilated to his presence. He is no longer a novelty and he just becomes one of the guys. But every time he moves on it starts over again.

Logan is weary of it.

In November he officially becomes a member of the VAQ-87 Skywarriors. His sea tour commences with two week training missions on the _USS George H. W. Bush_ and a ground job as Public Affairs Officer.

He gets promoted to Lieutenant—another impersonal pinning on of his new rank—in January; ironically enough, on the 30th. _Six years._

He tries not to think much about what Thad said. About closure.

 

_______

 

In May, the _USS George H. W. Bush_ puts out to sea for eight months and Logan begins his first overseas deployment. The Skywarriors are assigned to the ship for advanced strike and electronic warfare in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The ship is basically a large city with an aircraft factory plopped in the middle of it. She is a rabbit’s warren of passages and stairways. Doors are raised up a few inches, the easier for you to smack your shins into, and hatches endlessly swing out into hallways. All of the bulkheads are painted an industrial Navy gray, and looking down a corridor is somewhat dizzying, like looking into funhouse mirrors. Everything on the ship is stripped down to its essentials; its functions laid bare. Wires, boxes and pipes protrude from the bulkhead with no attempt made to disguise them. Comfort is not really a factor for the Navy, a fact Logan notes ironically every time he stoops to walk through the halls, bobbing and weaving to avoid overhead pipes.

The squad’s onboard ready room had been heavily customized over the years and probably displays the most individual personality of any place on the ship. A sound system, foosball table and a lumpy couch give the impression of a really poorly equipped bachelor pad; an impression which is somewhat marred by the way the ship constantly reverberates with the boom and roar of jets taking off and landing. The room itself is a splash of color; the floor is tiled in the Skywarriors’ colors and a large banner with their insignia hangs across one wall. On the other wall hangs a giant collage with recent pictures of wives, girlfriends, children, and sweethearts. Logan pretty much avoids that wall; it gives him an empty feeling every time he sees one of the guys staring at it.

A month into the deployment, Logan is on restriction for telling his XO that he’s acting like a jackass. In his defense, the XO _is_ a jackass—the entire squad agrees—but it has been a while since something slipped so directly from Logan’s brain to his lips. It worries him. Done with his extra punishment detail for the day, Logan sits in the mess decks, staring at the stack of paper in front of him, thinking about his shrink’s final words. _Closure._ His cell phone, useless out at sea, sits next to him. He picks it up and scrolls down the contacts to gaze at Veronica’s name. _Where is she now? What is she doing?_ The thoughts are familiar, almost comforting. _Maybe that’s a little sick._

Beeper jogs by him. “Hey Echolls, you need to sign up for Skype time? The new list just opened up, better get up there fast.”

“No, I’m good,” Logan answers abstractedly.

Beeper skids to a stop and comes back, “Really?” He looks down at the piece of paper in front of Logan. “Oh, you an old fashioned letter writer? My ex used to want me to do that. Pain in the ass.”

“Yeah.”

Beeper sizes him up. “Oh shit, sorry. You’re not writing one of _those_ letters are you?”

Logan blinks. Beeper’s meaning dawns on him. “A last letter, you mean?”

“Yeah, sorry. You kind of had the look.” Beeper looks chagrined. A wiry red-headed man, he’s famous in the squad for putting his foot into his mouth. He clearly thinks he’s stepped in it again.

Logan answers slowly. “No.”

Beeper shakes his head, relieved, and bounces on the balls of his feet. “Good, ‘cause I know some guys do, but if you ask me that shit is morbid.”

“Yeah.”

Beeper speeds off to inform the rest of the squad about the new Skype availability. Logan knows they’ll all go rushing up to the computer lab, desperate to sign up for a chance to connect with their wives, their husbands, their mothers.

He looks down at his phone, then at the paper. He picks up a pen and begins to write.

_Dear Veronica,_

_I think I finally understand the person you were in college a little better. I never could grasp why you expended so much of your energy on the pursuit of justice, how you could want to help a world that had hurt you so much, or why you cared. Back then, all I wanted to do was live selfishly in my own safe little bubble with the few people I loved._

_I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I joined the Navy. I’m a Naval Aviator now. I legitimately don’t know why I joined up. It wasn’t for any altruistic reasons. I didn’t believe in god or country or mom’s apple pie. I just wanted to be someone better._

_Somehow, miraculously, through my usual fake-it-till-you-make-it brand of effort, I think that has happened. The Navy allows me some opportunity to help people. To, in some small way, make up for all that I was given and all that I threw away. I don’t know if I can ever atone for the screwed up shitty mess of a human being I was when we were together, but I want you to know, if you get this, that from the depths of my soul, I have spent the last seven years trying._

_I am so, so, unendingly sorry for everything, Veronica. Who I am has changed, but how I feel about you never will._

_Please live well and know that wherever you are, wherever I am, you are in my thoughts._

_Love,_

_Logan_

It doesn’t say half of what he is thinking. Half of what he feels, but the tears are streaming unchecked down his cheeks now—in the middle of the damn mess decks—so he decides to get out of there before he gets even more ridiculous.

He moves his hand to ball the paper up and throw it away, but at the last minute he checks the motion, creases the letter carefully, writes “Veronica Mars” on the back of it and sticks it at the far back of his locker.

 

_______

 

There are some combat sorties on the deployment. The Skywarriors fly as an advance team to scramble insurgent communications so that a squad of Hornets can take out a weapons bunker. Most of the flying they do is routine, though. Qualifying runs to keep their skills sharp. Patrols. Submarine support missions.

Unlike any of the other pilots in the squad, Logan’s favorite is the night flying. He can’t get enough of it. Landing in pitch black on the deck of the moving carrier is widely considered the most terrifying task in all of aviation, but the flight...oh, the flight. 

Up on the flight deck, getting ready to run some night maneuvers, he breathes in contentedly. The air is thick with the acrid scent of jet fuel.

He walks a slow circle around the jet, running his hands over every surface lovingly, carefully, then climbs into the jet, hooks up, and straps in. The familiar happy rush is coursing through him. _Going home._

He is conscientious throughout the seemingly interminable pre-flight until finally he is cleared and the cat launches him up into the night sky.

The lights of the carrier quickly fall behind, leaving Logan disoriented as to where the horizon is—another reason most of the guys don’t like night flights—but all of that fades into insignificance at the view spread out before him.

With his night vision engaged, the sky is a wash of glittering green stars on velvet black. He is flying through deep space. Flying in an alien world. Logan does a quick barrel roll out of sheer joy. The ocean below dimly reflects back the glint of the stars, intensifying the feeling that he is hurtling through a galaxy. It is a transcendent experience. Logan quotes quietly to himself, _''Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive.”— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry._ The next time they come into port he’s going to change his voicemail. The cockpit lights glow gently and the crystalline sky surrounds him, bears him on, holds him up. In front of him, set into the sky like spangles, is the splendor of the Milky Way. Lonely—it is exquisitely lonely and glorious.

_Nothing beats this. Nothing._

With his eyes and head on the mission, and his heart tossed out into the void, Logan Echolls flies circles through the dazzling night sky.

 

_______

 

It is December of 2013 and he is celebrating his return from deployment. Logan generally doesn’t hang out much with the guys from the squad outside of work, but he let himself get talked into it this time. Now, as they are walking from the bar they’d been hanging out at to where Milligan had stashed his truck, Logan finds himself happy he came out. The night air is cool and fresh. He’s feeling pepped up and slightly buzzed—he hasn’t drunk hard liquor in so long that the Patron kind of did a number on him—and he’s enjoying the rough-and-tumble energy of the group of five navy pilots.

The pack of young men are loud and boisterous, shoving each other and hooting in glee as they ride Beeper mercilessly about his obsession with Bonnie DeVille. Vic and Beeper get into a mock shoving match in the middle of the darkened street. Logan, hanging back slightly, smiles as Vic caroms into him.

“Oof!” Vic exclaims, “sorry man!”

“No problem,” Logan smiles sweetly, “It’s not your fault Beeper wants to be a starfucker.”

A loud chorus of “ooohs” greets his dig as the guys, giddy with liquor and youth and freedom, stagger around. Sully licks his finger and mimes touching it to his ass; making an exaggerated “tsss” noise to emphasize Logan’s burn.

Everyone is shoving each other now and laughing. Logan grins and steps back, holding both of his hands out in a flourishing ‘stop’ gesture, “Hey now, gentlemen. Gentlemen!” A few of the guys turn to look at him. Vic is occupied trying to put Beeper into a headlock. Logan continues, drunk-dramatically, “I believe I might be able to help our comrade here out with his little problem.” Vic and Beeper stop grappling and turn to look at him, Vic’s arm still locked around Beeper’s neck. “I happen to be slightly acquainted with Miss DeVille.”

“Shit, that’s right. Did your Dad..?” Sully trails off and Logan’s drunk glee diminishes for a moment. He drops the exaggeratedly theatrical tone he had been using and says in his normal voice, “Nah, man, we just went to high school together. We have some mutual friends.”

A couple of the guys nod and Vic tackles Beeper again, breaking up the moment of unease. Sully hooks his thumb to the left, where Vic is now making exaggerated kissy-faces as Beeper tries to swat him away. “You really think you could get Beeps here an in?”

Logan shrugs, “I’m not saying he’ll get to make sweet music with her, but she’s playing here in LA tonight, right?” Sully nods. “I could get us into her show. Probably backstage.”

“She’s at one of those fancy-ass private clubs, though. They’d never let us in,” says Milligan (the designated driver and thus a voice of semi-reason.)

Logan shrugs and raises his eyebrows; he can see that the easy confidence on his face is convincing the others. He’s starting to wish he’d never brought it up. _This was stupid._ “Whatever. I mean, we should probably just go back to base and pick our cars up.”

At this, Beeper breaks free of Vic and comes bounding up, “Oh fuck no, man. If you can get us in to see _Bonnie DeVille_ ,” his voice is reverent and Vic and Sully start snickering again, “then we are damn well going to go.” He points, drunkenly, in the direction of Milligan’s truck. “Onward, and into the blue!”

As the group piles into the truck and makes the relatively short drive over to the West Hollywood club district, Logan is regretting his drunken impulse immensely. He’s worked really hard to keep his navy life separate from his past. He downplays his Hollywood background so much, in fact, and he’s been with the squad long enough now that he was hoping the guys were starting to forget about it. Now, though—Logan looks over to the other side of the truck, where Beeper has his face smooshed against the window glass in excitement—he can’t exactly back out now. _This was damn stupid._

They come up to the club. A line of heavily made-up LA party people snakes away from the door, bound by velvet ropes. Milligan starts to cruise past and look (in vain) for a place to park, but Logan lays a hand on his shoulder and says quietly, “pull right up to the front of the line. Like valet.”

Shooting Logan an uneasy look, Milligan does as he says. Sully, Vic and Beeper look at each other, edgy and suddenly out of their depth. With an internal sigh, Logan says, quietly, “come on,” and exits the truck. As he hits the pavement, Logan can feel the mantle of the 09er Prince slide back over him. It comes to him more easily than he would have thought. More easily than he’d like.

He strides straight up to the bouncer, ignoring the disbelieving looks the velvet rope rejects are giving the five casually dressed guys piling out of the extended cab Ford F-150. Logan stops in front of the bouncer and says to him, with bored unconcern, “We’re here.”

The bouncer’s gaze slowly sweeps Logan up and down, taking in his simple jeans and dark Henley. He raises his eyebrows, “Name?”

“Logan Echolls.” Logan pronounces the syllables clearly and distinctly in a way he hasn’t done in forever, laying each one down like a challenge.

The bouncer looks down at the list, frowning. Behind him, inside the club, Logan’s name catches the attention of a skinny rat-faced guy of about thirty who comes slinking up to the door.

“Logan Echolls? Seriously?”

Logan looks at Rat Face, assessing the man’s dress and manner— _there’s some power here_ —and immediately smiles. “Yeah. I’m an old friend of Carrie’s—” he laughs overly-heartily, “I mean Bonnie’s—and I thought I’d surprise her.”

“Seriously? Logan Echolls, hmm?”

Rat Face looks Logan up and down, the tip of his tongue peeks out of the corner of his mouth. Logan can practically see him calculating the relative draw of the reclusive son-of-a-dead-movie-star. Logan hasn’t been in the tabloids much at all lately. Does that make this a better story or a worse story publicity-wise for his club? After a moment, Rat Face seems to decide for the better.

“Let him in. And put Mister Echolls here on the list, Larry. He’s welcome any time.” Rat Face slides away, back into the crowd.

“And them?” The bouncer nods at the four guys huddled behind Logan. Beeper peeks out around his shoulder.

With all of the confidence and arrogance bred into him since birth, Logan says, “They’re with me.” He feels dirty. _Stupid idea._

The bouncer rolls his eyes and gives a shrug. “Whatever, man.” He unhooks the rope waves his hand to let them pass. _Yahtzee_ , Logan thinks with a wistful mental hat tip. He walks forward and the guys shuffle behind him into the club.

“Ho- _ly_ shit,” Sully intones. Logan’s four squad mates are looking at him with a mixture of awe, disbelief and unease. “You’ve been holding out on us, man.” _This was a stupid fucking idea._

The concert is actually pretty great, though. Carrie—Bonnie—has a lot of talent in a slinky-depressing Amy Winehouse kind of way. He remembers hearing one of her first big hits and thinking it was more dance-pop than the songs she’s singing now. _Wonder what caused the change in direction?_

He can feel himself relaxing a little now that they are just a group of guys in a room watching a concert. After the first set, he sends a note to Carrie with his name and she sends him one in return inviting them backstage after the show. Beeper is in what can only be described as a tizzy.

When they go back, after the show, Carrie’s dressing room is full of people buzzing and laughing. There is a frenetic air to the crowd that suggests illegal substances, but Logan doesn’t see anything lying around. He spots Carrie, curled up into a small divan on the far side of the room. The crowd around her separates as he walks forward.

“Logan Echolls,” Carrie draws out his name and looks up at him with a cat-like smile. “It’s been a while.”

“It has. It was at least three hair colors ago.” He can hear high school in his tone. “Great show.”

She tilts her head in thanks. “I’m glad to see you got all dolled up. I love it when a guy makes an effort.”

He looks down at his casual clothes and says, in his best southern belle, “why this little old thing? I just happened to have it lying around.”

She smirks and shoots back, “good. I’d hate to see you put out.”

A wicked grin curls his lips. “Now that was a softball. Because I really enjoyed the concert I’m going to let that one slide. Just this once.”

Her eyes laugh at him. “A kinder, gentler Logan Echolls, I see.”

“What does it look like?” He holds his arms out at his sides, fingers spread, and does a small spin.

She taps her fingers against her lips. Assessing. Teasing. “ _You_ look like trouble. Got any crimes planned for tonight?” Her eyebrows lift in mischievous innuendo. Logan lets out a surprised crack of laughter.

She snorts. “Punk.”

He hasn’t enjoyed banter with a woman like this in a while. It’s not as good as…well, it’s still pretty good.

“So, Dick says you’re in the Navy now?”

“Yup. These guys,” he waves a hand, “are in my squad.” He points at each in turn. “Vic, Sully, Milligan and Bee—Spenser.”

Logan steps back as the guys rush up and surround Carrie. Beeper is bright red and trying to be suave. Vic is actually being suave, grabbing Carrie’s hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. Sully and Milligan are elbowing each other nervously, trying to work up the nerve to ask for a picture for Sully’s girlfriend, who is a big fan of Bonnie’s.

Logan watches from the edge of the room as Carrie laughs with abandon; her head thrown back and her neck a graceful curve. Everyone in the room is watching her—tracking her—and it hits him; _she’s a Lilly_. Just like that, he knows he’s going to fall for her.

It’s not the worst decision in the world, he tells himself; at least she’s not a Veronica.

_No one is a Veronica._

_______

 

By January, Logan is getting morning sex again. And if it’s not quite as transcendent an experience as he recalls, well, it’s been a long time and he’s older now.

That January 30th he almost doesn’t remember. He is in bed alone—Carrie is playing a show in Vegas and he has an early morning briefing—when it comes to him. _Seven years._ He is flooded with guilt for forgetting. Then he is flooded with guilt for feeling guilty about forgetting. That’s a fun combination. _Carrie._ He lies in bed, suddenly sleepless, eyes burning into the early morning hours.

One of the best things about dating Carrie is that it brings him and Dick back into each others’ orbit regularly. They slide right back into their old bro-mance as easily as they always have. The downside, though, is that Logan has to hang around with Dick and Carrie’s 09er friends from high school, none of whom seem to know how to deal with Lt. Logan Echolls.

Gia is fine—batty and annoying as shit, but basically decent hearted—and he and Luke can have relatively normal conversations. Stu Cobbler though, or John Enbom, or Ashley Banks; they are horrible. The few times he’s run into Madison Sinclair he’s wanted to run in the other direction.

They think his navy job is hilarious, a laugh. Enbom seems to take it as license to trot out an endless stream of “in the Navy” gay jokes, which Logan bats back at him increasingly bitingly every time they run into each other.

More and more Logan tries to only hang out with Carrie when the two of them are alone. Alone, she is hilarious and sharply-sweet. She is teasing and open, except when he or someone else treads over some invisible line, then she just shuts down. Turns into a damned doll. Logan figures he can cut her some slack. He’s pretty sure he has invisible lines too. Carrie turns out to be a master video gamer, triumphantly creaming both him and Dick at _Call of Duty_ one memorable evening. They banter and make love and fight occasionally and, well, hang out. It is a world apart from the Navy. A world apart from Hollywood.

Their relationship also gives him something he hasn’t had since Veronica; someone who understands parts of his past—the Neptune High parts—even if she wasn’t really involved in it. Carrie never tries to ask him about Lilly or Aaron; never brings up Beaver or Veronica. He doesn’t have to explain his aversion to suicide jokes. It’s nice.

For the first six months that they are dating, Logan and his squad have shore duty, since they’ve just returned from deployment, but in July the carrier starts regularly putting out to sea for the two week training operations that are typical of a sea tour.

At first, Carrie seems fine with his absences. She sends him off with a kiss and welcomes him home…enthusiastically. For the first time, Logan seems to have everything the other guys on the squad have. There is a tremendous amount of ribbing the first time a picture of he and Carrie goes up in the Ready Room, and some of the guys are awkward around him again. He’s pretty much figured that he can’t have everything in life though. Dating Carrie and hanging out with Dick and the 09er crowd, however nominally, automatically creates distance between him and the other pilots. He doesn’t want it, but it’s there. Just as flight training and the Navy had created distance with Dick.

In November, he comes home from two weeks at sea and Carrie isn’t waiting at his San Diego condo where she said she’d be. She isn’t answering her phone. Worried, Logan drops off his gear, quickly changes and drives up to Carrie’s Neptune mansion.

When he gets there, he lets himself in—her alarm isn’t set, ramping up his panic—and starts to jog through the house calling her name.

As he enters the kitchen, he hears her yell, “Sailor!” gleefully from the second floor. Logan takes the stairs two at a time and finds Carrie in her bedroom, perched on the edge of the bed, her face covered in dried blood.

“Carrie! What the hell!?” He rushes to her.

She sways toward him, trying to get up, but stumbles and falls forward instead. Logan catches her before she hits the ground and helps her back up onto the bed.

Carrie blinks at him and giggles, an eerie, drug-fueled sound that sends chills through him. She babbles, “I’m in San Diego, why are you here?” Her eyes are shifting all around, she can’t seem to settle on any one thing. Giggles continue to punctuate her nonsensical questions. “Wait, I mean, you’re in San Diego, why am I here? No, that’s not right either.”

“Shit Carrie. What happened?” Logan props her up and sweeps her hair back from her face to look for the source of the blood. It looks like it was a nosebleed, thank god, not a cut or broken bone. He shakes her a little, “What are you on?”

She giggles again and slumps over onto the bed. “It’s all good. I’m all right. Cobb said I’d feel fine.”

 _Cobb. Shit._ Logan hates the toxic little lapdog. All Stu Cobbler seems to be good for is sponging off of Gia, Carrie and Luke; Logan could never figure out why they’d put up with him or what they got from him in return. Obviously he now has his answer.

“Carrie!” He shakes her again. “What are you on?”

“Just a lil’ candy. Candy cane.” She laughs a hysterical, full-body laugh, falling over shrieking and slapping the bed.

 _Cocaine. Okay._ He puts a hand on the side of her neck. She is cool and her pulse rate feels normal.

“I took it _forever_ ago. Then took a lil’ Ambien to come down. I’m good. I’m good.” She props herself up on her hands and knees and tries to crawl across the bed toward him in a sick parody of seduction, “Wanna go?” She catches her knee in the covers and face plants back onto the bed.

“Shit, Carrie.” Logan says quietly. Carrie doesn’t move from her prone position. She’s crashing. Her breathing seems normal, she’s not running a temperature and her pulse is steady, so he decides to let her sleep. _I’ll wake her up every thirty minutes._

Logan rolls Carrie over, takes off the high heels she’s strapped into, and tucks her under the covers, smoothing back her hair. There is a sick, familiar feeling in his gut.

“I just want to forget.” Carrie mumbles into her pillow. _I know the feeling,_ he thinks, looking at her helplessly, _but forget what?_ She is asleep before he can respond.

As Carrie snores into the pillow, Logan slowly sits on the side of the bed and watches her. He knows Carrie has had drug problems before—she’s mentioned going to rehab—but since they’ve been together he’s never seen her take anything more than a hit off of a joint. _How long has this been going on? Is this the first time? Has she been getting shitfaced every time I’m at sea?_ A swell of anger fills him briefly, _why are all of the women in my life fucking weak?_ The anger ebbs as quickly as it had risen. _She has shitty friends. Her Hollywood crowd is worthless and Gia isn’t exactly a bastion of stability._

_Carrie. What am I going to do?_

He gets up wearily and walks to the bathroom, wetting a washcloth with warm water and wringing it out. He returns to the bedroom, sits on the edge of the bed again and begins to gently scrub the dried blood off of Carrie’s face.

_What am I going to do?_

Carrie suddenly groans and her hand flops toward him, scrabbling until it settles on his thigh, and then stilling. He looks down at it.

_I can help her. I can save her. I love her._

_______

 

At one o’clock in the morning on January 30th, Logan is at the Sac N Pac buying late night munchies. Carrie is sober—has been for eight weeks—but she is increasingly mercurial. Twenty minutes ago she conceived a desire for corn nuts; whining at him, poking him, and tickling him until he got out of bed, put some pants on, and went on a mission.

He speeds through the store, feeling uneasy about leaving Carrie alone in the middle of the night. _Was she just trying to get me out of the house?_ He hates the suspicion that colors every aspect of their relationship now, but there is no removing it.

Logan grabs the snacks and bolts for the check-out lane. Just as he’s inputting his pin number, a man falls into line behind him. Short. Balding. Older than he remembers. Keith Mars.

Logan feels it like a punch to the gut. Every molecule of air seems to escape him. He stands, rigid, as the cashier finishes his transaction.

Keith is taken aback too. “Logan,” he says with a short nod, looking Logan up and down speculatively, his gaze assessing—always fucking assessing.

Logan manages a nod in response, “Sir.” He says, automatically. Keith blinks and rears back minutely in surprise.

Logan gathers the snacks and walks robotically out to his car. He sinks into the driver’s seat, and punctiliously clicks his seatbelt into place before letting his head fall forward onto the wheel. Adrenaline is kicking in and it’s all he can do not to rush back into the store and let the questions burst out of him in a giant explosion. _Is-she-all-right-where-is-she-what-is-she-doing-does-she-ask-about-me-where-is-she?_

It’s the first time he’s seen Keith since before Veronica left Hearst—god, almost eight years ago. The thought jolts through him. It’s after midnight. It is January 30th. _Eight years._ He stares out the windshield with dazed eyes. _Whoever is up there really does like to fuck with me._

Keith leaves the store and starts to walk across the parking lot.Logan has kept a Google alert on Keith Mars for a long time now. Keith, because it seemed slightly less creepy than the other option, but he figured he’d still find out if anything…serious happened. It is almost surreal to see the man himself after picturing him unchanged over so many years of reading articles about his cases. _You could get out of the car._ _You could ask about her; just find out where she is, if she is happy._

Instead, Logan sits and watches as Keith Mars gets into his car and pulls out of the parking lot. Logan slumps in his seat. Seeing Veronica’s dad has cracked him open; put to rest whatever notions he might have had about closure. _God, I’m a shitty boyfriend. A shitty human being. I deserve whatever the universe decides to throw at me._

 _No._ Logan forces himself out of the past. Pushes down the old feeling of self-loathing and shoves them back into the box he keeps them locked in. He may still have feelings for Veronica— _okay, not ‘may’_ —but that doesn’t make him a bad person. He loves Carrie; he loves who she can be. Veronica doesn’t change that. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s a Naval Aviator. He’s a good person now.

Ten minutes after Keith leaves the lot, Logan exhales shakily, starts the car and heads for Carrie’s.

 

_______

 

Carrie falls apart. Not gradually, or all at once, but in chunks. It’s like watching a cliff crumble into the sea in time lapse. There will be a period of relative stability. They go to the beach, they watch movies, there is an _I-know-you-know-I-know_ tension underlying everything, but things will still be…good. Then they won’t be. First he sees the blankness—that hated, soul-stealing blankness—and doll-Carrie makes a reappearance. Then there will be screaming matches and unexplained late nights. Questions met with defiant eyes. Doors slammed. Once, faces slapped. Then, tearful recriminations and sobbing on the floor. _So sorry. So sorry. Never again._ And it starts over.

Carrie is crumbling to pieces and he’s not strong enough to put her back together.

It eats at him long after his feelings for her start to die. Long after he’s held her hair back and cleaned up her puke. Long after the scratches on his face and the umpteenth time he’s taken off her shoes and put her to bed. Long after “it’s the last time.” And “I mean it, Carrie, this has to be the last time.” She won’t get help. She wants him, wants him; doesn’t want him to help. Carrie is dying before his eyes—Carrie is _choosing_ to die—and he can’t stop it. Has to watch it. Has to bear witness.

And then there’s Sean.

 

_______

 

Logan is slumped over the desk in the corner of his bedroom nook in Dick’s house, the edge of one hand crammed against his mouth, the other clutching his cell phone.

His voicemail box is full of messages from JAG corps, messages from his XO, his CO. He can’t listen to them; he knows what they’ll say. _What happened? How could you let yourself get mixed up in this? Don’t you know how bad this looks for the Navy? You should have known better._ Milligan, the squad’s duty officer, sent him a text: “Don’t worry about coming down to base until this is all over. We’ve got it covered.” Logan doesn’t know how to take it. Are the guys sympathetic? Accusatory? Withholding judgment? All of the above, he suspects.

Logan stares at Veronica's number. 

This time, he might actually do it; might actually break his lucky talisman and call her. Nine years later. What the hell, right? It's not like there is any hope left any way. He might as well wreck his last illusion. Bottom out his life. That's where the universe seems to be pushing him, anyway. 

He gazes at his uniform, hanging, neatly-pressed in his closet. _I’m going to lose everything._ The phone is shaking in his hands.

He’ll call and she won’t answer. _(Yes, she will.)_ Or she’ll answer, but she won’t want to help _(Yes, she will.)_ There is no way she’ll let herself be dragged into this. _(She’ll come. She’ll help.)_ Then he’ll be able to move on with his disaster of a life, free of any remaining fantasies of love and home and trust. He laughs—a low, hopeless sound—how is that for closure?

 

_______

 

He calls.

She comes.

 

_______

 

New Veronica claims she “doesn’t do that anymore,” but Logan isn’t quite convinced. For one thing, he’s never been able to picture her doing anything other than sleuthing, poking, prying, and being brilliant in the name of justice. For another, she is, well, _doing it._

He can tell she’s hooked on Ruby and Carrie and the mystery, and every time he opens his hands to let her go, she flies right back, clinging tenaciously to the case, to…him? _What is that old adage?_

It is almost too painful to hope.

His life is a shit-show, way more so than it has been since college, and he can’t believe this is how she has to see him again.

In most of his reunion fantasies, she’s encountered him somewhere in his work capacity (okay, so he couldn’t resist wearing the uniform to the airport, what of it?) He would be upright and he would be stable and she would be impressed; she’d jump his bones; yadda, yadda, yadda; porn.

In real life, though, it’s all so jumbled up, there’s Carrie and then there’s Piz (motherfucking _Piz_ ) and Logan has no idea what is happening in his life or where he is going, but he knows what he wants. He knows what he’s always wanted.

_But what does she want? Why is she here? _

He really sees it in her when she accuses Dick of withholding information—Dick!—like he’s at all capable of being some sort of criminal mastermind.

“California has the death penalty, Dick, so why don’t you act like you give a damn about your friend and tell me what really happened that night.” She is fired up. Righteous.

Veronica is right. California does have the death penalty, but no one else seems to care about that. _She cares._

He called.

She came.

And then she solves the case and fixes everything. _Falling right back into our old rhythms, indeed._

 

_______

 

 

The morning after Cobb shoots Gia, Logan wakes up with Veronica Mars on top of him, straddling him, naked.

When she sees his eyes open, she grins at him wickedly, “Morning, handsome,” and grinds down on him a bit. A low grunt escapes him as he grasps her hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh.

Veronica has stripped off her sleep shirt and underwear and is rocking her bare core against him. Logan can feel her hot wetness seeping through his boxer briefs. She groans inarticulately as he hardens in response to her movements, rocking up against her, finding her rhythm, pressing just _there_. Her head falls back, mouth open in a silent “O,” then she throws herself forward, the ends of her hair lashing lightly against his bare torso. The early morning light slants in through the window, highlighting her skin until it glows. She is warm everywhere and she smells like _them_.

 _Morning sex with Veronica._ It is so much his dream, his nine year long fantasy of their last last time that he is suddenly frantically sure that this is a dream too. That all of this—Veronica coming to him, helping him, _with_ him again—is just some big hallucination. Desperately, his hands scrabble up her back to her shoulders. He closes one hand around her nape and brings her mouth down to his, grinding furiously; hot, wet and sloppy; trying to force her to be real. She presses into the kiss for a moment, then pulls back and nips his lip slightly.

Suddenly urgent to have her, posses her, claim her, Logan flips the two of them over in one quick movement. Veronica eagerly strips off his boxer briefs, cupping his balls lightly and running her fingernail around them. He can’t wait; can’t wait. Logan pulls back and enters her in one smooth thrust, driving all the way to her core and then some. Deeper into her; then deeper. He has her stripped naked, now he wants to keep going, to see all of her that there is.

Veronica’s hands claw at his ass, desperately dragging at him, pressing urgently. His thrusts are frantic. _This is real. This is real. This is real._ He wants to take it in—the flush of her chest, the desperate mewls escaping her as her eyes loose focus—but his body won’t slow down, driven by forces beyond his control. _Make this real._ Veronica comes suddenly and loudly, wrapping her legs around him tightly and clenching, her back bowed.

Logan is still driving into her. He’s there, god, he’s almost there, but he just can’t. _Make this real._ He can’t.

“Veronica,” he grunts out as his thrusts become erratic, hard, he has to be hurting her, “I can’t…I need…”

She grasps his shoulders and pulls her face up to his. He can feel her moist breath against his ear as she whispers, almost inaudibly, “Logan.”

Tension explodes at the base of his spine and he comes in great heaves, calling her name again and again.

Spent, he collapses on top of her. He makes a move to roll to the side, but she wraps her hands around his waist and their sweat-slicked bodies suction together.

_Morning sex again. At last._

_______

 

Four days after Gia’s death, Logan wakes up early to go surfing. After a pleasant hour of zenning out in the waves, he trudges back up the beach, board tucked under his arm and hair thick with salt, toward a small figure sitting in the sand.

Veronica has thrown on jeans and one of his Navy sweatshirts—comically large on her—but still looks pleasantly sleep rumpled. He leans down and gives her a kiss. She pats the sand next to her and tilts her head at him, smiling invitingly.

He unzips his wetsuit and peels it off; taking the long-sleeved t-shirt Veronica hands him and putting on before sitting down next to her on the sand. She immediately scoots over next to him so that her shoulder nudges his.

They stare out at the ocean companionably for a few minutes. “How were the waves?” Veronica finally asks, idly.

Logan shrugs. “Not bad. Although, after two years living on the Gulf of Mexico pretty much anything still seems good.”

“The Gulf, huh? Where were you…stationed?”

They are still trying to figure each other out; trying to fill in nine years worth of blanks. Every time he thinks about the fact that they only have two weeks to do that in person Logan’s heart sinks. The Navy has been his salvation, he could never resent it or the demands of his job, but this is about the closest he’s ever come.

“I did IFS, API and my Primary in and around Pensacola and Advanced at Kingsville, Texas.”

Veronica shakes her head, “I feel like everything you say requires a Navy-to-English translation.” She laughs teasingly, “I’m wearing out Google just trying to figure out what the heck you’re talking about half the time.”

“Sorry,” Logan says, straight-faced, “I’ve forgotten how to talk to civs; that is, civillians.”

“What about…” Veronica trails off, uncertain.

“Carrie?” Logan asks softly. “You can ask about her, I don’t mind.” He pulls Veronica down with him to lie back on the sand, his arm propped behind her head. “I don’t mind talking about anything with you.”

Veronica nestles the back of her head into his bicep. “You didn’t talk about the Navy with Carrie?”

Logan flexes his bare toes into the sand, thinking. “Not really. When things were good, the two of us kind of just made our own little bubble. I think she liked that I wasn’t part of the Hollywood crowd really, but she didn’t have much interest in the Navy side of my life either.” He smiles up at the sky a little, “Although she did like the way my uniform looked in press pictures.”

Veronica is quiet for a moment; the fingers of her left hand idly play with his hand where it cups her shoulder.

“Logan,” she begins, still sounding a bit hesitant.

“Mmhm?”

She turns onto her side to face him. “Why did you join the Navy?”

Logan, taken slightly by surprise, is trying to order his thoughts when she rushes in apologetically to fill the silence, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t—“

“No, no. I’m just…thinking.”

“Okay.”

“I thought…I thought at the time that the Navy was a lifeline; my chance to course correct. It was like it just appeared in front of me, this magical alternative to my shitty meaningless life, and wouldn’t get unstuck from my brain. Then, once I was in, I thought I stuck it out because I wanted to fly planes.”

“You thought?”

“Yeah. And neither of those reasons are wrong, exactly. It was a lifeline—I was pretty messed up, I just didn’t have—” He breaks off, shaking his head. Veronica grabs hold of his hand and squeezes hard. “And I do love flying jets. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But, why I really joined…I don’t know, I think it was more than that.” Logan closes his eyes, trying to sum up something ineffable, something he’s never really articulated even to himself. “In the Navy, Veronica, I can help people.” His voice drops and he finishes quietly, thinking of Carrie, thinking of his mom. “I can save people.” Veronica scoots in a little closer to him, wordlessly, and rests her forehead against his side. He drops his hand down to caress her hair.

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Joining the Navy? No.” About that there is no hesitation. “The only thing is, I don’t really fit anywhere, you know. Not with Dick and that gang. Not really with my squad either, though they’re good guys. I just don’t quite fit.”

“I know the feeling,” Veronica says as she rolls over on top of him and presses her length into him. “But you fit here, don’t you?” She sighs into his ear. “We fit.”

“We do,” he says huskily into her hair. “We still do.”

“Well then, Logan, lets just stay here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

 

_______

 

By the time January 30th comes around—oddly just another day now, nothing to wallow in—he is out at sea and away from her again. The deployment crawls by. Logan never quite understood the talk of homesickness and the depression that could accompany it before, but he thinks he gets it now. _Guess I have a home to be sick for again._ The thought cheers him up slightly.

He lives for Veronica’s emails in his inbox. His days are frustratingly busy and he doesn’t get to email her as often as he’d like; their Skype calls are even less frequent and often more frustrating.

Still, though, Logan’s work is just as satisfying as it ever has been. He’d been a little worried that he’d find himself distracted from it, or resentful. He had a secret fear that he’d be like he was last time—that Veronica would overwhelm everything else in his life—but his unrivaled joy at the flying is still there and he still feels bounded, soothed, and upheld by the navy-ness of life on the boat. It gives him a sense of peace to think that maybe this time he can have Veronica in his life—at the center of it—without her _being_ his life.

Everything would be great, if only he didn’t miss her so damn much.

During one of their Skype conversations, Logan is eagerly detailing some of the squad’s aerial maneuvers to Veronica.

“…so I do a high Yo-Yo, which puts me behind and above Ghost,” He arranges his hands in front of the camera, to demonstrate their positioning, “and he tries a hammerhead turn, but he overshoots a little, so all of a sudden I have to—”

He breaks off. Veronica is smiling at him or, more accurately given the camera positioning, at a spot a little above his left ear.

“What?”

Her smile widens, “You are such a geek.”

“Hey!”

“No, really. It’s kind of cute.” She is patronizing, teasing.

“Cute? Me?” He clasps a hand to his breast in mock outrage. “How dare you?”

“Don’t try to deny it. You just spent ten minutes telling me about how turn rate affects corner speed. Or something.”

Logan fires back. “Hey, who was it who spent fifteen minutes of our last conversation describing the lens specifications and capabilities of the new camera she bought?”

“Okay, okay, you win.” She is laughing, the poor connection rendering her movements jerky and pixilated. “We should submit our Skype conversations to some sort of Mating Habits of the Geek fetish site.”

Logan nods sagely. “Just make sure you tag them with my username—BigSwingingGeek1—I want to be able to find them later.”

Veronica grins at him, but he can see the sadness stealing the expression from her face as he watches. Logan can practically hear the words ‘I miss you’ hanging in the air, but Veronica doesn’t say it, because of course she doesn’t, and he doesn’t say it either. She knows already and it won’t help anything.

She recovers quickly. “Okay, flyboy, tell me more about these…yo-yos?”

He pulls his hands back in front of the camera. “Right, so a yo-yo roll is for when…”

 

_______

 

On his last deployment, Logan had given up his chance at participating in the fly-in—the squad’s formal homecoming ceremony—opting instead to stay on the boat and get into port a few days later. He figured the fly-in was for guys with loved ones and what did a few extra days on the boat matter to him, anyway?

This time, though, he takes ruthless advantage of his ranking as one of the squad’s best pilots to get himself a spot on the formal fly-in list. Veronica isn’t going to be at the hangar—he’d told her not to come, anticipating her discomfort at the very public, very rah-rah ceremony—but he would do almost anything to get back to her a few days earlier.

The day of the fly-in, the jets take off from the deck of the aircraft carrier in waves, flying in formation. The flight from the _U.S.S. George H.W. Bush_ to NAS North Island takes about forty-five minutes. It has to be the first time in his entire naval career that Logan hasn’t enjoyed even a minute of his flight time. He is maintaining the sharp degree of focus needed to pilot a seventy million dollar jet—barely—but all his mind wants to do is run over the steps between now and when he gets to see Veronica.

They’ll do a fly-over in formation. He’s in the second wave to come in, so that’s an extra twenty minutes right there. Ten minutes to get out of the jet and across the tarmac. If he moves quickly and gets through the crowd while all of the greetings are happening, he can probably dodge the informal reception they’ll have set up. Say, twenty minutes to get to a cab; maybe twenty more—if traffic is good—to get to the downtown San Diego hotel where Veronica has rented a room and will be waiting for him. She’s promised to wear something “interesting.”

He groans mentally and tries to wrench his thoughts toward subjects more suitable to jet flying.

Finally the San Diego coastline comes into view. A few of the pilots let out whoops into the communication system in their helmets. Logan is intent. _Two hours at most._ That is what he will give the universe. _Two hours until I see her._

The first wave of jets speeds off, leaving the rest of the squad behind in preparation for their fly-over and landing. Logan can start to make out the familiar profile of NAS North Island. He squints a little, trying to pick out the hangar. Not quite yet, but soon he’ll be close enough to see it. _Hangar. Cab. Freeway. Hotel. Veronica._

At last it is time for his wave of jets to begin their descent into North Island. They circle the hangar in tight formation, engines roaring. As Logan banks his Growler to make a turn, he can see the cheering, waving, brightly colored crowd of loved ones below.

They touch down, a much easier landing than the trap onboard the carrier, thankfully, and the pilots eagerly start their post-flight routine. Logan unhooks himself as quickly as possible, raising the canopy and levering himself out of the cockpit. When the Flight Ops guy gives the cue, he crawls out onto the wing and springs down to the ground in a series of familiar motions. As eager as he is to get on the way— _Cab. Freeway. Hotel. Veronica_ —he takes a second to fist bump the ground crew in thanks and to shake hands with Vic, whose jet is parked next to his.

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan catches a blur of color and motion. The ground crew has released the loved ones onto the tarmac. Normally he loves to watch the reunions, there is something so damn hopeful about them, but this time he just wants to get out as quickly as possible. He puts his head down, trying to avoid any eye contact that might necessitate hail-fellow-well-met goodbye conversations with the guys from the squad.

Logan is dodging around running spouses and children, his focus laser-like on the hangar door, when a soft, yielding body smacks into him at top speed, knocking the top of its head into his chin. He stumbles forward, instinctively grabbing onto his assailant’s shoulders. He barely gets out “I’m s—” when his body catches on before his brain does and he is crushing her to him, inhaling her scent. He gets a mouthful of her hair as she scales him, linking her arms around his neck and burrowing her face into his shoulder.

_Veronica._

She slides back down his body, arms loosening as she pulls back. She is laughing, crying, and wincing all at the same time. “Owww…” Veronica moans, clutching at the place where her forehead made sharp contact with his chin.

Logan rubs his chin ruefully, grinning down at her. “Speak for yourself. I always knew you were hard-headed, Bobcat, but—“

She loosens one hand from its tight grip around his forearm to smack at his chest. “It’s not my fault you weren’t looking where you were going!” She snorts, and it is such a perfectly Veronica sound that he closes his eyes momentarily in pleasure. “Not exactly the picture perfect reunion I had planned for you, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t know, seems pretty good to me. I came back,” he says, grinning foolishly, “you’re still here.” _This is the best moment of my entire life._

Veronica rivals the sun. “Always,” she breathes and throws herself into his arms. He picks her up and whirls her around, claiming her mouth in a long, fierce kiss. She wraps her legs around his waist as he stops spinning and presses their foreheads together.

“What are you doing here?” He asks softly, joyfully. “I thought you didn’t want to come to this.” He takes in her attire; she is wearing a dress with a tight bodice and a short but full skirt in his squad’s colors of black and sky-blue. “And you dressed up.” He is overwhelmed. Every time she adjusts her life to fit him into it he falls even more love with her. “But you didn’t want—“

“Logan,” she says, a slightly exasperated edge to her voice— _and damn if that isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve heard in six months_ —as she unlocks her legs and steps away a little, “you didn’t so much _ask_ if I wanted to come as _tell_ me I didn’t want to come.” She twines her fingers into his flight suit. “I emailed Beeper and asked him to set me up with a pass to get on base.” She tugs at his collar, bringing his head down to hers for another kiss. “I wanted to come,” she whispers against his lips— _okay, wait no, that is the sexiest thing I’ve heard_ — “I wanted to see you right away.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you went to all that trouble.”

A goony grin splits her face. “Yeah, well, it was no forty-nine dollar ticket, but I couldn’t wait.”

He throws his head back and laughs, squeezing her hard.

Veronica leans her whole body into him, melting against him and molding her curves into his body as he laughs, shaking them both. “Welcome home, Logan,” she says as she wraps her arms around his waist. “Welcome home.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written almost entirely because I love the hell out of the Yeats poem that forms the epigraph and wanted to write something that would complement it. The full poem can be found [here.](http://www.bartleby.com/148/3.html) (I took out a few lines pertaining to Irish nationalism). 
> 
> In the process of writing this and the sequel to Stay, I wound up creating a pretty extensive timeline of what Logan and Veronica were doing during the nine years of radio silence. It is [here](http://bit.ly/1paFOLa) if you are interested in taking a look at it.


End file.
